


Your Heart's Desire

by Werepirechick



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Demons, Annoyingly Protective Siblings, Budding Love, Demon Summoning, Demons, Denial of Feelings, Drunken Shenanigans, Emotions, Falling In Love, Family, Frustration, Grocery Shopping, Holy Water, Homework, M/M, Magical Accidents, Past Relationship(s), Plants, Poor Life Choices, Protective Siblings, Slow Build, Slow Burn, because neither of them know what they're doing at all, its really just one big slow disaster of romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-24 14:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9760373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Werepirechick/pseuds/Werepirechick
Summary: In which Casey makes a lot of bad decisions, buys more groceries than he wants to, deals with his own mistakes, makes a bad drunk decision, almost dies more than once, falls in love, and summons a demon.Not in that order.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this was meant to be a short one-shot.
> 
> it didn't work out quite like that, so now i'm splitting it up because it got so fucking long.
> 
> fuck dammnit.

Casey heard his alarm sound, and he rolled over to slap the snooze. However, his had made contact with something… not plastic.

Casey grumbled, refusing to open his eyes yet. Too early, it was way too early… too much hangover, not enough sleep…

He slapped the thing again, trying to find his alarm clock.

“Quit it before I bite your hand off,” Someone growled.

Casey’s eyes snapped open, and he yanked his hand away so fast it smacked the wall behind him. Tangling his legs in his sheets as he did, he scrambled into sitting position.

There was someone in his room. Sitting by his bed. A pair of acidic green eyes glared back at him, standing out against the man’s darker skin.

“Wha- _what the hell’re you doing in my house?!”_ Casey yelped.

The man glared harder, sneering at Casey. “ _You’re_ the one who brought me here!”

Casey frantically tried to recall if he’d brought a dude home with him last night, and failed.

“Shit- did I really?” He said, wincing apologetically. “God, I was so smashed last night, I can’t remember anything.”

The man gave him a look of disbelief. “Wha- seriously?! You can’t remember anything?”

Casey shook his head, again wincing, this time from the budding headache there. “Not a thing. It’s all blurry and blacked out. Dude, I’m so sorry, you weren’t waiting too long for me right? You should’ve just woken me up.”

The man stared at Casey, mouth gaping, and hey those were some real sharp incisors right there-

“Oh fuck,” The man said, putting his face in his hands. “You’ve got to be kidding me. _Hhhhh_ …. I should have listened to Leo about accepting summons like that…”

“Summons? Heh, you’re not some kind of ‘call guy’ or something, right? I mean… no way I was _that_ drunk…” Casey trailed off, staring at something lashing across the floor.

Was that…? No not a snake, it had a bunch of fluff on the end, and was attached… to…

_Oh._

“ _TAIL!”_ Casey shouted, pointing at the thing on the floor. He took a closer look at the man’s head, Casey’s own head finally cleared of all cobwebs, and- “ _HORNS!”_

The man took his hands away from his face, and gave Casey a deeply annoyed look. “What did you _expect_ , idiot? I’m a demon for crying out loud! _You_ _knew that._ ”

To further prove his point- the man’s skin darkened with scales, and his green irises filled his whole sclera. A long forked tongue slithered out of his mouth and the man- the _demon_ , hissed at Casey.

Casey let out a strangled laugh, and then screamed.

 

 

 

Somewhere between flying out of bed, knocking over his sketchbook stack by the door, his baseball bat collection also beside the door, and slipping on a salt pentagram-thingy on his living room floor- where the _fuck_ did his carpet go- Casey managed to calm down a bit.

He tried to assess the situation.

There was a huge ass, old ass book bigger than his chest on the coffee table. That probably explained the salt on the floor, if the candles surrounding the book and the diagrams inside were anything to go by.

The demon-man-person had not disappeared yet. This was still not a dream. He was still looking at Casey like he was an idiot and/or was regretting ever setting foot in Casey’s tiny shithole apartment.

Casey still couldn’t find his carpet. Where the ever living _fuck_ did he put his carpet.

Casey scratched his head a bunch, did ten loops around the whole of his living room/kitchen area, checked ten times if the demon-person-dude was still there, and managed to calm down.

Just enough to sit the guy-demon-whatever down on the couch, and try to sort things out.

“So let me get this straight,” Casey said, standing in front of his couch and guest. “I summoned you, and you’re a demon, aaaaaaand I accidentally made a contract with you?”

“You can’t make contracts on accident, but somehow, I think you managed,” The demon guy drawled, slouching on Casey’s couch. His tail- _holy fuck-_ was still lashing back and forth in annoyance, the fluffy tip of it disturbing the scattered salt on the floor. He glared at Casey, showing a bit of fang as he sneered. “Congrats, you managed to fuck up like no one else ever has.”

Had it been anyone else saying that to him, Casey would have snapped back at them, but the inhuman nature of his house guest gave him pause.

A lot of the guy was very human like, but his less than human bits gave him away. Badly so.

The tail for starters. Longer than the guy’s legs, and fairly thick. It was dark enough that Casey couldn’t see were the fluffy bits started, and the scales ended. And the _horns_. God damn the _horns._

Set on either side of his head, with a spiky dark hair sticking up in between, the two black horns stood out prominently. Tips aimed at the ceiling, and a slight curve against the skull. They sort of looked like goat’s horns, but with smoother ridges. A few inches tall each.

The scales were gone again, receded… wherever they’d gone/come from, but Casey thought he could see a hint of them around the corners of the demon’s eyes.

Wow those were some green eyes.

“You’re staring,” The demon guy growled.

“Can you blame me?” Casey quipped automatically.

The demon sneered again.

Nice teeth too. Sharp.

How far into shock was he, by this point?

Pretty far.

“So like,” Casey coughed awkwardly. “Do you know what happened to my carpet, man? I kind of liked it.”

“You threw it off the balcony,” The demon replied, jerking his thumb at Casey tiny excuse for a balcony. “Right after you summoned me. You had to make some room, so you tossed out _‘the least breakable thing’_. Your words not mine.”

Casey opened his mouth, closed it, and ran to open his sliding doors.

He looked over the wrought metal railing of the balcony, and- “-aw _FUCK!”_

He’d thrown his carpet outside alright. Right onto the communal trash bins area below. It also looked like it’d rained last night, since there were huge puddles all over the place.

Fuck.

Casey put his hands to the sides of his face. “ _Fuuuuuuuuuuck,_ man. I’m _never_ gonna get the smell out of it now!”

“If that’d been your desire when you summoned me, I could fix it easy.”

“What?” Casey turned around, looking at his guest. “‘Desire’? What??”

“You summoned me with a desire,” The demon guy said, leaning onto the arm of the couch. “I can’t leave until I fulfill it.”

“Um- what?”

“ _Desire._ It means to want something or someone or whatever. Donnie’s better at the details,” The demon waved his hand dismissively. “Whatever, anyways it means that you had an intention that needed fulfillment when you summoned me, and you wanted me to grant it. You were supposed to tell me what it was when I appeared, but _instead,_ you went off on a rant about how much space I was taking up, tossed your carpet out the window, and then passed out. Not exactly informative.”

“Um.” Casey floundered at the description of _‘desire’_. “Yeah. Uh. I don’t remember even summoning you, dude, so I sure as fuck don’t remember _why_ I summoned you.”

“I was starting to get that idea,” The demon said in a deeply annoyed tone.

“Uh- also, why would I toss my carpet outside?” Casey asked, stepping back into the room and shutting the doors behind him. He’d deal with his forsaken floor cover later. “Why would I need extra room? I mean, like, no offense man- but you’re kinda short.”

It was true. When they’d been standing, the demon guy hadn’t even made it to Casey’s nose.

The demon guy bristled- literally, his tail’s end poofed up and everything- and he spat, _“Ex-fucking-s’cuse me_ for being _below average demon height!_ And besides! This isn’t even my real size, _asshole._ I shrank down for the sake of your stupid mortal ceiling. You’re fucking _welcome.”_

Casey blinked, vaguely noting he was so far into shock he wasn’t even bothered by the tone of the demon. “Well, how big are you really, then?”

The demon guy smiled for the first time since Casey had woken up. It wasn’t a nice smile.

“Let me to _s͠how͡ ̨y͡oư.”͝_

Maybe asking had been a bad idea.

The demon on Casey’s couch turned pitched black all over- then into smoke, and the smoke cloud increased in size and swirled through the air like ink, until-

_-bad idea bad idea bad idea-_

-the smoke solidified into an enormous shape, big enough its back and head brush against Casey’s ceiling, and its tail snaked through his kitchen space.

 _The demon sort of looks like a dragon,_ Casey’s hysterical mind supplied, _but not quite._

The demon’s horns knocked against the ceiling plaster, and two luminous green eyes stood out against the sheer darkness of his skin.

He smiled, wide and sharp, showing off the rows of long fangs in his mouth.

“̀My͘ r͘eal ̀ńame͘ is̛ ùn̕pron͜o̧u҉nc̡eab̢le in y͝o̷ur̨ l̛an̷guage, ́a͏n͢d͢ ẁoúld͏ ̢pr͡ob̸a͘b͝ly ̴ḿelt yo͜ur mind ̸an̶ywa͝ys,͜ ͠s҉ò-” ̵He grinned wider, vicious and terrifying. “̀-ćall m̷e _Ra̵ph͠ąȩl. ̵_ I̶’̵m the͘ d̨em͏on ̢you̴ ̵sòme͞how͠ mąn̵age̡d͏ to ̵summ̕on̴,͠ ͠a͢nd ̵Ì’m̀ n̶òt ̸góing͡ ̢a̴n͠yw͝h҉er̢e͠ ̛until͢ yo̴u reme͢m̨b҉e̕r _wh҉y,̢_ ơr-̕” ̨His long tongue snaked out, and he took a step towards Casey. “-̷uńt̴i͘l ýou ̢ _die.͏_ Undeŕs̡t́o͟o͠d?͘”

Casey looked up at the demon’s teeth, then at the huge claws on his hands, and then at the gouges Raphael was leaving in his ceiling.

Hm.

Yup. _Such_ a bad idea.

Casey whirled around, yanked his sliding door back open, and scrambled out of his apartment.

He heard growling behind him, and swore there was hot breath blown on his back as he escaped.

He grabbed the railing of his balcony, got his feet up on it, and jumped over the gap between his and his neighbor’s balcony. Narrowly, he avoided landing on any of the plants there- he did _not_ want to hurt those plants again, not after the scolding he’d gotten last time.

And- _oh thank god-_ she’d left her doors unlocked again.

Casey pulled open the sliding door of his neighbor’s apartment, bursting in and almost tripping over the pile of clothes in the living room. “ _APRIL! APRIL HELP I HAVE A PROBLEM!”_

No answer, so he scrambled through the rest of the apartment- identical to his own excluding the contents- and headed for April’s bedroom.

 _“APRIL!”_ He shouted, nearly kicking in her door.

“-jESUS CHRIST- _Casey!”_ April exclaimed, fumbling with the book in her hands and almost dropping it on her face. “What did I say about coming into my apartment without permission?!”

“Yeah hi sorry about that but _you have to come with me right now,”_ Casey said, grabbing April’s arms and trying to pull her out of bed. “I have a problem and it’s kinda huge and wrecking my apartment and I _know_ you hate going anywhere on Sundays but _please-”_

“Oh for- _fine_. Just stop yanking on me!” She kicked him lightly in the gut, and untangled the rest of herself from her covers. “I swear- you better not have come in through the balcony again.”

“Uh.”

_“Casey.”_

A few seconds later, after Casey physically pushed April out of her apartment - _“No we don’t have time to get dressed, this is an emergency!”-_ they ended up in front of his apartment’s shut door.

April, arms crossed in front of her faded sleep shirt, glared up at Casey in all her bushy Sunday morning glory. “If this is some animal you brought home while you were drunk last night-”

“It’s not a dog! I learned my lesson with that one,” Casey defended. “This is- uh, well, I’m not really sure what to call it. It’s a problem, that I know for sure.”

April glared at him, and blew her mussed bangs away from her eyes. “Alright, show me this ‘problem’ of yours. I want to get back to my novel sometime today.”

Casey jerked a nod, and reached out to turn his doorknob.

It was locked.

“It’s, uh, It’s locked,” He said.

“You forgot your keys-”

“I forgot my keys.”

“Casey.”

“I- just give me a moment,” He put his ear to the door, listening for the demon guy. There was a sound that suspiciously sounded like his CD collection being knocked over. Casey rapped on the door. “Hey- hey Raphael? I’m sort of locked out. Could you open the door?”

Did demons even know how to do that?

Wait was he even going to let Casey back inside? He _had_ sort of literally run out on him-

The door’s deadbolt and handle clicked, and the door opened slightly.

“You brought a guy home last night? _That’s_ your big problem?” April asked, giving him a look. “Casey, usually that’s the _opposite_ of a problem.”

“Uh, you’ll understand it if you see it,” Casey gestured at the door. “I can’t really explain it properly in words.”

April rolled her eyes. “And yet, half of your major is in literature, which is literally describing things with words.”

“Just take a look already.”

Casey’s brain caught up with him right then, as April reached out to fully open the door, and he realized there was a chance this was just going to get them both killed.

_Uh, whoops-_

April opened the door, and the same time as she saw it, Casey also saw-

The whole of Raphael's mass, still crammed into the tight space of Casey’s living room. Raphael’s teeth were still bared, and he was facing the doorway.

The demon let out a rolling snarl at them both, and April slammed the door shut.

“What- what the _fuck_ is that, Casey?!” April hissed, putting her back to the door as though it would keep the huge demon inside it contained. “What the _actual. fuck.”_

“I might’ve summoned a demon,” Casey said. “Mostly on accident.”

“How- _how do you even manage that?!”_

“I have no idea. I sort of was too drunk to remember.”

“ _CASEY.”_

 

 

 

Raphael didn’t end up eating them. Or killing them either. He just huffed in their faces when they’d been brave enough to open the door again, blowing hot smelly demon breath and everywhere, and changed back into his mostly human form.

“You’re both terrible hosts,” He’d said tetchily. “The humans a few centuries ago would have been groveling on the ground for my favor. You haven’t even offered me food and drink yet.”

April had turned very pale by that point, and said very quietly, “He has a tail. And horns.”

Raphael had rolled his eyes at them both, and demanded Casey remember what he’d summoned the demon for, so he could _“Get the hell back to hell and be done with this shit-show.”_

Casey, naturally, had questioned what hell was like.

Raphael had responded, _“It’s a figure of speech where I come from. ‘Hell’ isn’t that singular. There’s a lot of them out there. You humans are just too stupid to perceive them.”_

April, at that point, had gone inside and helped herself to Casey’s stash of energy drinks. Chugging a full can before she did, she then proceeded to rant at Casey for irresponsible (drunk) decisions, his choice in parties, getting her up on a _Sunday_ of all days, always dragging her into nonsensical misadventures and making it _her problems too_ , and the state of his house.

Also that he’d brought an actual flipping demon onto their plain of existence, but it’d seemed like she was trying to focus on normal things for the sake of her composure.

Raphael had watched, and smirked, the whole time April ranted at Casey. Prick.

After she’d calmed down, April had pushed her hair out of her face, and asked Raphael if he was planning on razing their apartment complex to the ground at all that day.

“I don’t have much interest in that sort of thing,” Raphael had said, studying his longer than safe nails. “That’s more my brother’s area.”

“Good enough for me. Don’t eat him, he still owes me fifty bucks,” April had said, handing the empty drink can to Casey and patting him on the shoulder. “Good luck with this one, Casey. I have no advice to offer, and I promise I’ll check in later to see if you’re still alive. Excuse me though, I have to go rearrange my understanding of mythos and legend and possibly question my whole reality for a bit. Bye.”

And then she’d left, slamming the door behind her, and leaving Casey with an amused demon in his kitchen, eating the last of his already wimpy fruit bowl.

That’d been a few hours ago, and now Casey was sitting on his carpet-less floor with his eyes closed and a throbbing headache.

Hangovers were a real hassle unless you gave them time to ease off. Raphael hadn’t given Casey that time.

Slave driver.

“You’re not thinking about the right things, again,” Raphael chastised.

“Fuck off,” Casey snapped, opening his eyes and glaring at the lounging demon on his couch. “I’ve been at this for _hours_ , man. It ain’t comin’ no matter how many times I try.”

Raphael’s tail lashed out, knocking an empty energy drink can at Casey.

Casey caught it, and chucked it to the side. “Look. Dude. I know you’re some kind of interdimensional terror-thingy-whatever, but I’m hungry as fuck and have grocery shopping to do. Can we give it a rest for at least a few hours?”

Raphael turned another page of the thick book that had summoned him. “I want to go home. Keep at it.”

“Dude.”

Raphael ignored him.

“Bro.”

Raphael turned another page of the huge book.

“Pal. Compadre. Brosif. Duderino. Bruv. _Dude-”_

 _“What?”_ Raphael finally snapped.

“You already ate, like, everything in my kitchen, and I haven’t eaten _anything_ today,” Casey said, gesturing sharply at his dilapidated kitchen, and then at his wounded ceiling and tossed about furniture. “You also made a huge fucking mess of my house, and been a real asshole in general. We’re going shopping for dinner shit, and I’m not gonna do anymore meditating until we do.”

“Big words for a little man,” Raphael growled, curling his lip.

“Look who’s talkin’,” Casey shot back.

He honestly was past caring that Raphael could triple _\- quadruple?-_ in size and squash him flat. Casey was _hungry_ and his head hurt like a _bitch_. He wanted food, rest, and some time to chill.

If he had to risk getting his neck snapped for that, he was willing to. Besides, it’d been pretty fricking awesome to see a real live _demon_ in his living room; even if said demon was an asshole who tromped on peoples’ CD’s without apology. Not a bad way to go out, honestly.

Raphael stared Casey down, and the narrow green eyed glare only made Casey sweat a little bit.

Another drawn out moment, and Raphael shut his book and stood up to stretch. “I could eat, I guess. I’ll let you get away with that insolence for now, but don’t try your luck again. Also, we’re getting meat. I need a steak to sink my teeth into.”

Casey watched Raphael yawn, flashing sharp canines, and figured that was fair.

He was getting the cheap stuff though.

 

 

 

Casey only realized, about halfway to the store, that the person he was walking with didn’t look exactly human.

Oddly enough, no one said anything about the tail, or the horns, or the teeth, or the general aura of vague terror and anger…

“Can’t they see you?” Casey asked as they entered Safeway.

“Hm? Oh. Nah, I’m mostly invisible to them unless someone in the know points me out,” Raphael shrugged. “That human, April? She could only see me because I wanted her to. Plus you sort of told her to look for something, namely me. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been seen.”

 “Huh, nifty trick,” Casey said, grabbing a basket from the stack.

“I know a lot more impressive ones, but I guess so.”

A woman and her five kids, varying between toddler and teen, passed in front of them, forcing Casey and Raphael to pause.

Casey noticed one of the youngest kids looked at Raphael, and smiled as he pointed at the demon’s tail.

_“Mom! Look!”_

“Don’t point at strangers!” The child’s mother snapped, tugging her child along with the rest.

Casey chuckled softly. Looked like Raphael’s ability to be invisible wasn’t full proof.

Then, the hair on the back of his neck stood up, as a wave of _something_ flowed over him.

The child’s smile crumpled as he was led away, and he started crying loudly.

Casey turned to look at his companion, and found Raphael sneering at the child while emanating some sort of invisible field. It was making the air around them feel unsettling, and caused goosebumps to spread up Casey’s arms.

“Dude,” Casey said shortly, watching the sobbing kid get dragged off. “Not cool.”

Raphael gave him a look, then rolled his eyes and stopped doing whatever he was doing to cause the field. “What? It’s just some human kid. I have to get my kicks somehow. You’re all lucky I don’t just burn this place down…” He trailed off, wandering away as he did. “Come on. I smell meat this way.”

Casey looked after the sobbing kid, and then after Raphael, and wondered for a moment what he’d gotten himself into.

It took a bit of doing, and fighting about what to buy, and fighting to keep Raphael from messing with any other innocent customers, but eventually they made it the checkout area and Casey only had to buy an extra four packages of raw meat for his guest.

Where the hell the guy was putting it all, actual size being huge or not, was a mystery to Casey.

“I’m not fulfilling your whatever-desire, so I’m not getting any energy,” Raphael explained grudgingly, and only after Casey had pushed him to. “I _could_ eat someone, but… eh, it’s not really my thing. And our contract still stands right now, so whenever we finish it, I’ll have plenty.”

“You, uh, you eat people?” Casey asked.

“Not usually. Gets stuck in my teeth.”

“Mmmmkay… then…” Casey replied, inching a smidge more space from Raphael.

He’d probably need to keep his fridge well stocked, however long this lasted. For the sake of his neighbors.

April sent him a text on the way home, asking if he was still alive, and if she needed to call an exorcist yet.

Casey replied that she was a total flake out, and that he was never coming to her for help ever again.

She’d replied with _“thems the breaks”_ , and a shrugging emoji.

 

 

 

“This is so cool,” Casey whispered to himself, watching Raphael devour a whole package of uncooked meat in one go. He was mostly past the fact that Raphael was a demon, and now more stuck on the fact that Raphael was a _demon_ and holy _shit_ was that ever cool.

Even if he was an asshole.

He wondered if he’d get a chance to sketch the guy before he left. Raphael’s full demon form would make a sickass mid-term painting presentation, if Casey could get the colors and anatomy just right…

Wait, maybe that was why he’d summoned Raphael in the first place. For inspiration.

“Hey Raphael,” Casey said, making the demon at his tiny kitchen table pause in his eating. “Maybe I called you up or down or from whatever for inspiration? I’m a little stuck on some projects right now.”

Raphael’s long forked tongue slithered out, and he licked away a drop of meat juice from his lips. “Maybe. Humans do that a lot with my summonings. Get desperate with their work, turn to higher powers for help, and usually lose their soul in the process. Let’s give it a shot.”

Raphael raised his hand, a glowing circle of runes appearing in front of it as he did.

“Hey wait, what was that about losing my soul-?”

Another magic circle appeared in front of Casey, and-

-it made a bunch of sparks, and disappeared.

Raphael sighed, and slouched in his chair. “Nope. Not what you summoned me for. Try again.”

Casey put his hands on his chest, feeling where the circle had been.

“Okay. That was really fucking cool,” Casey said, glancing up at Raphael. “But seriously. The soul thing. What’s that about?”

“What did you think I got out of this?” Raphael said in a bored tone.

Casey opened his mouth, shut it, and said, _“-_ mmmmmmnot that?”

Raphael gave him a look. “I think humans somehow got even more stupid while I was gone.”

“Man, fuck you,” Casey said. He chose to throw one of the eggs he was holding at Raphael, because fuck him. Raphael caught the thing easily, popped it in his mouth, and ate it with a single crunch.

Casey blinked, and then grinned. “So cool.”

“Just hurry up and remember why you summoned me. I want to go home.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get right on that…”

 

 

 

Casey didn’t get right on it. He ate dinner, and went to bed. How he got away with that, he wasn’t sure. It probably had to do with Raphael discovering his television set and DVD collection.

Casey woke up again the next day, rolled over to slap his snooze alarm, and came face to face with Raphael again.

Casey stared at his demon guest for a moment, and then groaned. “Oh god. You’re still here.”

“Yep,” Raphael said, equally grumpy about things.

_“Fuuuuuuuuck…”_

“Get up and start thinking again. I want to go home.”

“I have school, asshat. That’s the only thinking I’ll be doing today.”

“No, you won’t. You’re going to complete the contract, and send me home.”

“Uuuuh… no?”

They glared at each other.

“I could just eat you and be done with this,” Raphael said, flashing his long canines.

“You said you didn’t like eating people,” Casey replied evenly.

“I’d make an exception for you.”

“I’m not doing the contract thingy today. I’ve got real work to do.”

“You’re going to do it, or you’re going to lose some limbs.”

Casey never claimed to have the best self-preservation instincts, so he picked a fight with the interdimensional demonic being invading his home.

There were words exchanged. Strong words.

Then there were fists exchanged.

Someone punched someone first, and pretty soon, they were tussling around Casey’s apartment spitting curses.

Literally on Raphael’s part, since something red glowing and hot flew by Casey’s ear, and set his countertop on fire.

“MY COUNTER!”

“SEND ME HOME DAMMNIT!”

_“MY COUNTER!!”_

Raphael waved his hand, and the fire vanished. The counter remained blackened though.

“Okay, so, neat trick,” Casey admitted, lowering his voice from yelling. Then he punched Raphael in the nose. “You’re still a prick.”

April strolled into Casey’s apartment right around then, holding her school bag in one hand and a spritzer bottle in the other. She watched Casey and Raphael grapple at each other with a bored expression. “Casey, we’re going to miss the bus.”

 _“I’m-”_ Raphael’s fist socked him in the chest, and Casey let out a stunned “ _oof”_. “- _kind of busy at the moment!”_

She sighed, raised her spritzer bottle, and shot a few squirts of water at them.

Casey reeled from the cold water, while Raphael straight up yowled.

The liquid had hit Raphael’s bare skin, and started smoking.

One second Casey was being held in a lock by two thick arms, the next he was stumbling to find his balance again, and there was the sound of something thudding against his wall.

Casey pushed his shaggy hair out of his face, and realized Raphael had sunk his clawed hands and feet into the wall and ceiling.

Raphael snarled wordlessly, tail lashing and eye flashing dangerously.

In the back of his head, the image of an irate cat came to Casey’s mind. Also the _Exorcist_ movie.

April spritzed the demon again, and Raphael leapt across the room to get away. He left huge holes in the plaster as he did.

“Go get ready, I’ve got this,” April said calmly, eyeing down the furious demon with her spray bottle at the ready.

“Is that holy water?” Casey guessed.

“Yup. Visited the local church this morning. They’re actually very accommodating for this sort of thing. I stocked up.”

“Huh.”

Raphael curled back his lips, crouching on all fours and partially changed into his full demonic form. The patches of skin where the water had hit were red and angry looking, sort of like the demon himself. He snarled again. “I ̨c̀u̢r͡s҉e̡ ̀your̸ ͝chil҉d͡re͞n͜ ͟t͘o ͡ha̶ve̴ ̀p͢ítíf̕ul an̸d p̡àinf͡ul͢ ͘l̴iv̷es,̢ ͢mo̕rt̷a̡l ̀wòm͏an̶.”̢

“Good thing I’m not having any,” April replied plainly.

Raphael hissed, and April sprayed the floor in front of him threateningly.

“Pants. Now.” She instructed Casey.

Casey listened.

 

 

 

“Thanks again,” He said gratefully as they headed for the bus stop. “I was actually sorta wonderin’ if I’d make it to class today.”

“You’re welcome,” April said loftily.

“And you said you weren’t going to help me out with this.”

“You still owe me fifty bucks, and I expect it before this fiasco is over.”

Casey nodded. Yeah, he could do that at least. “You’re taking this whole ‘demon’ thing really well, you know.”

“Don’t under estimate my ability to give no shit, Casey. It won’t do you any good.”

“Fair point.”

“I still want my money.”

“Yeah, yeah…”

The passed the alley behind their apartment complex, and April pointed into it. “Weren’t you going to do something about your carpet?”

“I gave up and admitted defeat,” Casey sighed. “The smell wouldn’t have come out anyways.”

April patted his shoulder sympathetically, while saying _un_ sympathetically, “You do these things to yourself, Jones.”

“Shut uuuuuup…”

 

 

 

“Yo… Casey?”

“ _‘Yo’_ what?” Casey asked, still intent on the piece he was sketching.

“There’s like, a dude in the tree. He’s glaring at you.”

Casey fumbled his pencil, and spun around to face the window.

There was indeed a dude in the tree, glaring daggers at Casey.

Raphael, like some oversized cat, was perched in the branches of the tree outside the studio. Looked like the burns had cleared up, since he was back to normal.

If you could call a demon that.

“He someone you know?” Casey’s classmate asked, leaning around his easel to stare at Raphael.

Raphael’s tail lashed around, exactly like a cats would, and he bared his teeth at Casey. Apparently Casey’s ordinary classmate couldn’t see the actions, since he didn’t start screaming _“monster!”_ or anything.

Small blessings.

“Nope. Ignore him.” Casey said, getting up and going over to the window. He shut the curtains on Raphael’s pissy expression, and felt exactly zero guilt.

“Yeah okay Case’. He an ex or something?”

“He’s an asshole, that’s what he is.”

“Want me to call campus security?”

Casey thought wistfully about calling the renta-cops on the demon, but shook his head. “Nah. Would go badly for everyone. I’ll deal with him later.”

Namely, it would go badly because there’d probably be blood everywhere, and people very much dead on the ground. Cool as that imagery was in a heavy metal music video or an art piece; it was less cool when it involved real actual people.

Casey would have to settle for stealing April’s spritzer bottle- if she’d let him- and telling Raphael off for bothering him at school.

 

 

 

Raphael dropped out of thin air soon as Casey was alone- somewhere between the arts wing and the science wing, headed to meet April for lunch- and scared the bejeezus out of Casey.

Same message as that morning from the guy, _“Send me home, I could devour you, I’m such a big bad demon, blah blah blah…”_

Casey responded something along the lines of _“Fuck you”_ and that there were strawberry muffins available in the cafeteria that day, and like ‘hell’ was he missing that. The fact that he used that expression during a conversation with a literal demon wasn’t missed on him, and from Raphael’s expression of quiet fury, it wasn’t missed on him either.

He bought the guy off with a few of those muffins- they were probably the best thing around that was affordable to college students- and managed to get Raphael to leave off until he finished his classes.

When Casey got home, dumping his bag and jacket at the door, he was surprised to find his whole apartment restored to how it’d been, prior to Raphael’s appearance.

“Yooooo… what the heck, dude. How’d you do all this?” Casey asked, observing that all the holes and scorch marks were gone. Even his carpet was back.

“You gave me food,” Raphael said in a grumpy tone. He was finishing off a muffin as he perched on the couch arm. “The food yesterday, and the food today. Equal exchange. I had to do something in return, or it would be Wrong.”

“Wrong how?” Casey asked, vaguely wondering if this demon magic thing would work on some of his old sports equipment.

“Wrong with a capital double-u’, and would’ve given me indigestion,” Raphael licked his lips of crumbs, and Casey watched the action with vague awareness. “Can’t have things being unequal, or it gets unpleasant for me. So yeah, if you’re still worried about the whole ‘in exchange for you immortal soul’ thing, whatever you’re getting out of the contract will be equal in worth. Food was enough to get your apartment back to normal, and souls are worth a heck of a lot more. So hurry up with remembering, and you can have your riches and fame or whatever.”

Casey looked around again at the restored, original shittiness of his apartment, and figured he’d have to ask more about the equal exchange stuff later. “Sure. You want to eat and watch the game first though?”

Raphael seemed to consider the offer, narrowed green eyes, and eventually nodded. “Fine. I get first pick of food though.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do.”

They glared at each other.

“No you don’t.” Casey said again.

“Yes I do.” Raphael said again.

They glared harder.

Casey ended up having to give Raphael first pick anyways, but only so the demon would patch the hole he put in the wall with a fire ball. The hole that went clear into April’s apartment, and brought her exhausted wrath down on both of them.

Casey might not have gotten first degree burns from the water gun like Raphael, when April had upgraded he didn’t know, but it sucked anyways because- “ _Jesus woman, did you fill it with ice water or something?!”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Cold, April, real cold. Literally.”_

_“Fix my damn wall, Jones. I don’t have time for this.”_

_“You sure_ you’re _not a demon?”_

She sprayed him right in the face for that comment.

 

 

 

The third day went basically the same way.

Casey rolled over, tried to hit the snooze of his alarm clock, and almost lost a finger in the process.

April marched in, same as the morning before, and rescued him from the demon holding him in a chokehold. She threatened death to them both if they made her late for her seminar.

They only _just_ caught the bus, and the look April had given him for that told him exactly how lucky Casey was. Though, he felt someone watching him the whole way to school, and all through his morning seminars.

When he glanced out the second story studio’s windows, he got his answer.

“Who’s the dude in the red tank top?” One of his classmates asked, also staring out the window.

“Oh hey, it’s the guy that was bothering Casey yesterday,” The one who already knew Raphael answered. “Man, I didn’t know you could get fire to work like that.”

Raphael, probably with demonic magic of something equally annoying, had burned _“Asshole”_ in perfect calligraphy onto the campus lawn. It was in big enough font that it could have been seen even from the top levels of the school, and maybe even higher.

Casey opened the window, and leaned out to shout, _“WHY DO YOU HAVE NO CHILL?!”_

Raphael, standing on the edge of his handiwork, flipped Casey off with both hands.

Casey had yelled wordlessly, and flipped him off back.

“Ha ha… I do not envy you, Casey.”

“Hhhhh… _fuck off.”_

Raphael cornered Casey _again_ , halfway between buildings, and told him if Casey didn’t remember soon, he was going to start getting angry.

“As opposed to _what?”_ Casey asked, zero shits to give about the demon losing his temper.

“I could burn this whole school down, with everyone inside it,” The demon growled, magic runes appearing in his hands.

“If you do that, I’ll never tell you why I summoned you,” Casey said, because that was the one thing he still had over the demon.

Granted, Raphael could just kill him, but oddly enough the demon hadn’t followed through with the threat quite yet. Maybe souls were just worth that much.

Raphael bristled at Casey’s threat- the short hair between his horns standing up straight and spiky- and the demon spat licks of fire at Casey.

Casey’s eyebrows felt a bit toasty afterwards, but Raphael backed off again.

However, he came home to a ruined apartment that looked like a huge cat had shredded it, a smug partially transformed demon in the middle of the chaos, and spent the next few hours fighting with Raphael to fix it again.

He ended up having to text April to bring her water gun.

Casey took pity of the demon though, after Raphael spent a good hour sulking in the corner while his burns healed, and tried to remember _why_ he’d summoned the demon in the first place.

He consulted google, the huge and stupidly useless book, and his good old method of slapping street hockey balls around in the alley.

Nada. He didn’t remember anything. Even with all the new-age mind tricks he looked up, he couldn’t remember a thing. Drinking blackouts were just too strong for them.

Casey called it a night, and resigned himself to having a demon squatting in his apartment for a bit longer.

The semi-murderous look Raphael gave him, as Casey slunk off the bed, told him that time was running down.

 

 

 

Day four came, time ran down, and Raphael snapped.

At least Casey had made it to his one class that day, even if he’d come home to a furious demon. And even after Casey had started trying to remember again, the guy still snapped.

“It. has been. four DAYS. YOU MISERABLE. _FLESHBAG.”_ Raphael yelled, kicking Casey already severely abused coffee table. “Why can’t you just _remember_ already?!”

“I’m trying!” Casey snapped back. He shut the huge book, which had been zero help so far, and stood up from the couch. “And do you think this is any easier for me? You’re a fucking _terrible_ houseguest, and an enormous wad about literally _everything!”_

“I wouldn’t be, if you just SEND ME HOME ALREADY,” Raphael shouted. “I don’t _care_ if it’s hard for you, use your stupidly tiny brain to remember why you summoned me, and we can be _DONE._ ”

“Why can’t you just _leave_ if you want to so badly?!” Casey yelled, gesturing sharply. “I don’t want you here either, so feel free to fucking _go_ already!”

“BECAUSE IT’S AGAINST THE RULES!” Raphael yelled back.

“WHAT RULES?!”

“THE RULES THAT GOVERN MY VERY FUCKING EXISTENCE!”

“IGNORE THEM!”

“I _CAN’T!”_

Casey punched Raphael, right in the nose.

The demon reeled, blinking at the sudden attack. Then he snapped back to awareness, and sent a look of pure murder at Casey.

Casey ignored the look and jabbed again, only for his fist to be caught in Raphael’s grip.

 _“̨T̷ḩat’͡s it,͟”͏_ Raphael growled. He shoved Casey back hard enough he stumbled, and then started to grow.

Raphael doubled in size, black creeping over his brown skin and changing it to mostly scales. His shoes disappeared, and long claws extended from his toes. His tail whipped out, and _again_ knocked over Casey’s CD collection. He looked like he was between being bipedal and quadrupedal; caught between his demon form and human form.

Lastly, as he grabbed Casey by the collar and opened his scarily toothy mouth, a pair of wings popped into existence on his back.

Casey was distracted from his anger for a moment. “Dude, you have wings?”

Raphael visibly stuttered, which looked sort of hilarious on such a scary face. “I-  ͡of̵ ̴cour̡s̡è I̡ ̸d̨o! I show͞ed ̡y͟ǫu ̀th͝e̷m ͠t͝he ͟f́i̶r̢s͏t̸ d͝a̷y here͝!҉”̴

“Uh, was it when you got big and ruined my apartment? Because like, I couldn’t see jack except for your fat head.”

Raphael growled, low and rolling, and opened his mouth again.

 _“͏I͠ ̷CO͜U̸LD ̀D̵E͢V̸O͜U̢R ̵Y͝OU̡,̀ MǪRTÀL͜.”͘ ͏_ He roared, right in Casey’s face.

Naturally, Casey socked him in the nose.

“Fucking try!” Casey spat.

Raphael reeled from the shot, and he gave Casey a confused and offended look.

“͘Wh̀y͡ a̕r͠en’t̡ ̸ýo̷u̷ şcár͞e͜d̵?̀” Raphael asked, sounding actually confused.

Casey didn’t respond, other than attempting to knee the guy in his gut.

Raphael growled again, and he punched Casey. Hurt like a motherfucker, but he’d had worse.

Someone tripped someone, and they ended up wrestling on the floor. Casey managed to sock Raphael in the face again, feeling his knuckle split on a tooth.

Somewhere along the way, Raphael had reverted to his mostly human form, and Casey got a clear look at the rage in his expression.

The demon’s fist met Casey’s chest, and a whoosh of air left his lungs.

Casey was stunned, but he managed to kick the guy off, and send Raphael skidding across the floor.

Raphael rolled right back onto his feet, and maybe just for spite, knocked Casey’s coffee table into the wall with his tail.

Casey met the guy head on as he charged, and narrowly avoided goring himself on Raphael’s horns.

They tussled back and forth for a long while, knocking over everything they came into contact with. Casey thought he heard some of his dishes hit the floor when Raphael threw him into the cabinets. The kitchen table got thrown to the side as he dodged one of Raphael’s kicks. Someone put long claw gashes in the couch cushions and it definitely wasn’t Casey.

His plants from April, his DVD stacks, his sports equipment, some of his art projects- it all got knocked over and mildly trampled. Casey was too busy punching a demon to care though.

End result of the fight, Casey and Raphael sitting against the couch on the floor. Panting and a bit blood splattered.

Casey’s blood, not Raphael’s. He hadn’t managed to even make a dent in the guy.

Casey swiped his hand under his nose, feeling the hot red fluid smear on his skin. His right hand was a mess of already darkening bruises, and his face stung like hell. Probably would have a black eye soon.

Raphael sighed, and leaned his head back against the couch. His horns stabbed the fabric again, and Casey didn’t even care that a ripping sound followed the motion.

“…well that was pointless,” Casey muttered.

“Fuck you,” Raphael muttered back.

Casey wiped his smarting nose again. The blood was already starting to congeal. “You wanna watch the game?”

“…whatever. Sure.”

Casey reached across the floor, and grabbed the remote from where it’d been tossed. He turned on his boxy old TV, and sat against the couch again.

“You put a hole in my wall again,” Casey commented, thinking about the foot sized hole in his kitchen wall. “And broke my table too.”

“I’ll fix it later,” Raphael grumbled. “I’m tired right now though, so shut up and let me watch your pathetic human sports.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck you.”

They watched the rest of the game in silence, excluding Casey blowing blood snot into tissues.

Before he went to bed, Casey traded the rest of his meat products in the fridge for some insta-healing, because as much as he wanted to avoid Raph at that moment, he still needed his hands for schoolwork the next day.

The ache was still there, because not even magic could undo everything, but it was bearable with painkillers. Casey had the good type too, prescription even.

He and Raph exchanged no words as they separated for the night.

 

 

 

The next morning, when Casey rolled over to slap his alarm, he actually did without any issue.

He blinked, trying to remember why that was weird.

Oh yeah, demon in his apartment. Where’d Raphael get to?

He found his not-so-friendly neighborhood demon sitting in the early morning sunshine, legs crossed in a lotus position. With the light shining on him, the spiky ends of Raphael’s hair flashed red, and made his thin horn tips nearly glow.

Casey stopped for a moment, staring at the stark difference between the belligerent, snarling demon he’d been dealing with lately, and the peaceful, collected individual in front of his windows.

Casey leaned on the wall beside his bedroom door, examining his houseguest.

Besides the horns and tail and weird blood-red hair tips, Raphael seemed like a normal-ish guy in that moment.

Huh.

Casey’s fingers itched for his sketchbook and pencils. He kind of wanted to capture the scene.

Raphael turned his head right then, glancing over his broad shoulder. He stared at Casey for a moment, and then said, “Hey. Good morning.”

“Uh, yeah. Good morning,” Casey replied, a little surprised by the sudden lack of hostility.

Raphael turned back to the window, and seemed to be done with the conversation already. Casey raised an eyebrow at the sudden one-eighty.

“What, no ‘send me home already’? No, ‘fear me mortal’? No nothing?” Casey questioned.

“Nope,” Raphael said, not turning around.

“What’s with the sudden attitude change?”

“I did some thinking, and figured what we’ve been doing wasn’t working. So. I’m trying something else.”

“Oh yeah? And what’s that?” Casey asked, genuinely curious.

“Patience,” Raphael said, sounding annoyed by the very idea.

Casey’s laughter burst out of him before he could stop it.

“Oh bugger off,” Raphael grumbled, shooting a look over his shoulder. “It’s only because I’m tired of fixing your stupid apartment.”

“Sure, sure,” Casey chuckled, failing to smother his laughter. “Does this mean I can go to school without you hounding me all day?”

“Today? Yes. But don’t think I’m letting you off the hook for our contract. I’m not leaving until we complete it.”

“Like I didn’t hear you the first eighty times you told me…”

Raphael growled, flashing some teeth. “Just go to your pointlessly expensive mortal education already, and fuck off.”

Casey rolled his eyes. _There_ was the Raphael he knew and hated. “Yeah, whatever. I’m going, I’m going…”

Raphael didn’t bother Casey once the whole time he was getting ready. He even had a chance to make breakfast for the first time in days. By the time April strolled in, using the key he’d given her months back, Casey was actually ready to go.

“Oh. No need for this today, huh?” April asked, lowering the huge water gun she’d been carrying.

Raphael turned around to acknowledge her, and raised an eyebrow at the gun. “Overkill much?”

“What can I say,” April shrugged. “I’m having a little fun with this.”

Casey laughed, and grabbed his current favorite sketchbook off the pile. “I’ll be out in a minute, okay?”

“Right on.”

As April started to leave, Casey caught movement in the corner of his eye, and glanced back just in time to see Raphael bring up a spell circle in his hand.

A circle appeared in front of Casey again, and a flash of light around April told him she had one too. Then, before he could react, it shorted out and disappeared, the same time that April left the apartment.

Casey spun around and looked at Raphael in horror. “ _Dude!_ Did you just try to magic _April?”_

“I was just checking if that was what you desired,” Raphael said, no signs of guilt in his expression.

“I- what??”

“You know. Sexually.” Raphael said, gesturing vaguely. “Isn’t that a thing for most humans? Like, especially between men and women?”

“Not with April!” Casey exclaimed. “I mean. She’s not even _in_ to that sort of thing. And I’m- I don’t like her like that. She’s my friend. _Best_ friend. Nothin’ more.”

“You’re oddly offended by this,” Raphael commented.

“Yeah, well, it’s not cool to try forcing people into shit they don’t want,” Casey said, crossing his arms. “I don’t like it, and I know for sure April doesn’t either. Don’t try that again.”

Raphael looked at Casey a moment longer, and then shrugged. “Alright, nothing involving that type of desire. Got it. Now get going, I’m tired of listening to your voice.”

 _“It’s my apartment…”_ Casey reminded under his breath, but he let the subject go. He shut the door behind him, leaving the demon in his apartment alone for the day. His _undamaged_ apartment for the first time in a long while.

It wasn’t a bad feeling, but he sort of missed Raphael’s presence stalking him all through the day. It was weird, but he’d already gotten used to the guy hanging around him.

Casey took the peace and quiet, and put it towards his projects.

By the end of the day, he’d somehow finished a bunch of gesture sketches that looked a lot like a certain individual.

His professor questioned the sudden change of model; since until then, Casey had been sketching female figures. Casey didn’t have much of an explanation for the horns or tail in his drawing, other than he’d been having a weird few days.

His professor seemed to accept that, and complimented the way he’d captured the fluid movements on the paper. Especially the tail.

“I’ve been seeing a lot of them lately,” Casey explained, taking his papers back. “I’ve had a cat hanging out in my apartment the last while.”

“Oh? Is your kitty friendly?”

“Nope. He’s kind of awful.”

“O-oh…”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> still going.

“Is this me?”

Casey twisted his head, looking away from the quick stir-fry he was working cooking on the stove. Raphael was shifting through his schoolwork on the table, and it looked like he’d found the gesture sketches.

“Uh, yeah? ‘s for my classes,” Casey explained, trying for nonchalance. He shoved the vegetables in the pan around a bit. “What do you think?”

Raphael was quiet for a moment, and Casey started to feel weirdly nervous about the demon seeing his artwork. Which was odd, because he never gave a shit about what anyone thought of his art.

It’d been a weird week, so he gave himself some slack on that front.

“…it’s good,” Raphael said eventually, still tracing the page with his eyes. “It’s not as good as a lot of other people’s, but you’re a relatively young human. I guess you have time to get better still.”

“Can you say something without insulting me?”

“No. Idiot.”

Casey huffed, and went back to making dinner.

He was grinning though.

“Asshole,” He said, adding some soy sauce to the pan.

“Right back at you,” Raphael replied without hesitation.

 

 

 

After dinner, they tried playing some games against each other. Casey chose _Street Fighter_ , because he knew he was awesome at it, and felt like showing Raph up at something.

It didn’t go quite as he planned.

“How do you keep beating me?!” Casey exclaimed in dismay, watching the screen flash _‘Loser’_ on his half of the divide yet again. “You’ve probably never even played a video game before!”

“Yeah I have, what do you think I do all day in my home dimension?” Raphael asked incredulously, lowering his video counsel. “Eat souls and torture sinners?”

“Uh, yeah??”

“Well you’re wrong. I only do that on Tuesdays.”

“I can’t tell if you’re kidding or not.”

“Yes.”

“ _Raaaaaaaaph…”_

“Best seven out of ten, then? If I win, I get three drops of your blood.”

Casey recoiled, flinching away from Raph. “Yo, _what?!”_

Raph gave him a look, like _Casey_ was being the weird one here. “Spoils for winning, you know? Fairs fair and all that. Humans do betting too, why is this such a shock to you?”

_“We don’t bet our blood!”_

“You clearly don’t know much about your own history then.”

 _“Fucking-_ can’t we bet normal stuff?”

“This _is_ normal where I come from.”

“Yeah and you come from hell, what’s your point?”

“My point is that you’re being a wimp.”

Casey narrowed his eyes. “Take that back.”

“If you win, you get something equal to three drops of human blood,” Raph said, leveling a look at Casey. “If I win, you already know what I want.”

“How much is my blood worth anyways?” Casey asked, suspicious of being gipped.

Raph shrugged. “A fair amount. Humans are good conduits for a lot of things. Why do you think we encouraged all those sacrifices over the centuries? You could conquer a dimension with enough of those.” Raph blinked. “I probably shouldn’t have told you that. Whatever. You want to bet or not?”

Raph stuck out his hand, short claws extended and a faint red pulse in the center of his palm.

Casey looked at the hand, weighing his options.

What April would do, or what teenage him would do; that was the question.

…eh, fuckit. Now he was curious.

Casey grabbed Raph’s hand. “Deal.”

Their joined hands felt hot, and Raph smiled a pointy grin.

_"̢L̢et͠'͟s̷ ̵p͢la̧y ̢t͞hen͢.͘"_

Casey lost by two games, and ended up having to slit his finger tip with a kitchen knife.

It was honestly worth the loss, since Raph lit up like a fucking Christmas tree, and almost destroyed Casey’s living room- _again_ \- on his way out the balcony doors. Wings extended before he even made it out all the way, and tail lengthening and sweeping Casey’s CD rack onto the floor as he went.

Watching a demon power like some kind of anime character was a thing that Casey would probably never forget, and _did not want to forget._

Casey was so sketching that when he got a chance. The process of Raph swiping the drops from his fingers with his tongue, and a bright green glow filling his eyes.

Casey followed outside soon as he could, and hauled ass up to the rooftop of his apartment to see Raph swooping through the air like a maniac. The demon’s laughter could be heard even down on the roof, booming through the air as he shot off red sparks.

 _That was with just three drops of blood, what would more do_? That was the thought Casey had, watching Raph dive and glide at insane speeds.

He also had the thought, _what would it be like to fly like that?_

He didn’t get a chance to ask though, since Raph stopped circling the roof around then, and flew off into the distance. Casey watched him leave, and wondered if he’d be back. He hoped so. He still needed to chew Raph out for knocking his CD’s over, and challenge the demon to a rematch.

Casey realized a few minutes later, while he was smoking lazily on his couch and half watching a game re-run, that somewhere along the evening’s progression he’d started calling Raphael ‘Raph’ instead.

He stubbed out his cig in the ash tray, and didn’t linger on the thought.

Raph was back on Casey’s couch the next morning, halfway between forms and definitely crushing the springs.

“And where’d you get off to last night?” Casey asked, grabbing some sandwich meats out of the fridge for a morning sub. He was an adult; he made his own breakfast choices. “Terrorize any good villages?”

“Nah… none nearby,” Raph rumbled sleepily, stretching his wings with a huge yawn, and flopping back onto the couch. “Just went for a flight. Felt good, haven’t done it in a few days. Your fault by the way.”

“Hm. Yep.” Casey said without much sympathy. He finished fixing his sandwich, and took a huge bite.

“You’re working on the remembering thing again today. I still want to go home, and your break is officially over once you’re home from school.”

Casey mumbled a reply around his food, and went to put on his shoes while he kept eating. April wasn’t busing with him today, since she only had one seminar later in the day. She was probably up on the roof instead, tending to her plant hybrid experiments.

He glanced back at Raph as he picked up his bag by the door. The demon was asleep again, his dark limbs hanging off the couch since he was currently too big for it.

He really was like a huge, grumpy cat. Full of treats and sleeping it off, complete with the early morning sun shining on him.

Casey let out a huff of laughter, and shut the door quietly behind him.

 

 

 

“̶An̢ytḩi͢ng͠?”̧

“Nada. Sorry man, I really got nothing.”

Casey heard Raph’s tail whack against the railing again, and he opened his eyes. His legs felt crampy from sitting in lotus position, especially his left knee. It was supposed to help him ‘center his energy’, but Casey wasn’t feeling it.

He rubbed his smarting knee, trying to ease the old ache there. “Can I call it quits yet? I’m bored as fuck, dude.”

“̴You ̢t͏hin͢k ̛ _you’r̛e̕_ ̨bore͜d̵?” Raph said, a sneer clear in his voice. “̸I’ve ͏bee͏n̶ s͘tuc̶k͠ ̡he͜ŗe͡ ̨f̴or͡ ͡ al̕mo̕s̴t a̸ whol̵e we̕e̸k͞, ̢a͡nd͠ I͜’͡m͘ si͢c̡k of̴ i̸t̨.͘”̨

“Yeah, and I’ve been stuck with _you_ for a whole week. So touché, buddy.”

"I̴ ͞f͞e̕e͢l like̴ ͡y͡ou̴'͘re u͢s͢ing͡ th͏at i̕nc̸orrect̡ly͏."

Casey shuffled himself in a circle, turning to look at the enormous demon chilling out on his apartment’s rooftop. “What do _you_ know about linguistics?”

"Con͞s͝id͠ering I've ͡beęn a̴liv̢e ̴l͡o͝n͟ger̸ th͝an ̷yo̡u can ̕c̶om̕preh͢e͝nd͟,-” Raph said loftily, opening one lazy green eye at Casey. “-proba͜b̧l͠y̵ morę tha̴n̡ ͜yo̡u."̡

Casey glared at the demon, leaning on his palm. “Yeah, whatever, old man.”

Raph growled, opening his maw enough to flash his fangs. "Sh͞u͝t ͝up.  ̸A̶nd f̡ine̷, you ͢c͠an ţake͢ a ̕b̢r̶eak̨."̷

“You’re not the boss of me,” Casey said, just because he felt like it.

"I̶n y͜o͝u̴r͞ o̡pin͘i̡ơn," Raph said, but there was a teasing tone to his voice.

Casey rolled his eyes, and stretched out his legs as the demon settled back into his half-nap. God _damn_ was that a relief to feel.

As he bent over his legs, stretching slowly, he took a moment to look at the demon on his rooftop. Raph was comfortably stretched out himself, all scaly and everything.

The whole ‘invisible to mere mortals’ thing _was_ pretty cool, since it let Raph chill in his full demon form without issue. His wings were opened and laid flat, and his hair crest going down the length of his spine and tail swayed gently in the early summer wind.

Casey noticed that with the sun on him, Raph’s scales weren’t black. They were just a very, very dark green.

He chuckled to himself, because that plus the red tips on his hair, Raph was technically Christmas colored. He’d make a sickass holiday symbol, especially if he was the one pulling the sleigh on Christmas Eve.

"͢What'r̸e͞ y̵ǫu ̶l̛a̵u̕gh͘i͡ng ̛a̧t͟?" Raph asked without opening his eyes.

“Nothin’, nothin’… just something stupid.”

Casey was totally drawing that out, and slapping it onto any Christmas cards he made later that year. Probably all the ones following too.

"͞If it͟'͠s̶ ̸y̶o̸u,͡ it̨ prob̨abl͝y̢ ̧i̢s̢ so͠me̢t͟h̵in͞g s̴tupid.͏"

“Hey!”

 

 

 

“You’re very interested in this one subject lately, Casey,” His teacher said, examining the sketches he’d produced that day. She picked up the top paper, looking at the mid-transformation version of Raph. “I’m curious, what’s the source of your inspiration? You’ve improved greatly in just the last week.”

Casey shrugged. He hadn’t noticed he was improving; he’d just been going at it without much thought. It was how he always did his work. “Got a cat, and I guess he’s been influencing my mood.”

His teacher raised her eyebrow. “Interesting interpretation of a cat.”

“Hey, art is subjective ain’t it?”

She chuckled, grinning fondly. “I suppose so. Keep up the good work; I’m excited to see your mid-term project.”

“Heh, me too. Dunno what I’m gonna do with it yet.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

 

 

 

“Okay, the meditation thing isn’t working, so we’re trying something new,” Casey chucked a stick at Raph, and grinned. “Like some street hockey.”

Raph looked at the old hockey stick Casey had tossed at him, and then looked at Casey. “Seriously?”

“What? It’s when I do my best thinking.”

“Why am I not surprised.”

“Don’t knock it till you try it. Who knows, maybe me squaring off with you without punching will make somethin’ come back to me.”

“Yeah let’s hope so. I’m seriously ready to go home.”

Casey bounced the hard rubber ball on the ground, and caught it on the tip of his stick. “You ready to play or not?”

Raph’s tail swished around his feet, and he rolled his shoulders. “This is kid’s shit. I used to play the better version of this. It had fire involved.”

“Yoooooo… fire hockey’s a _thing?”_

“Yup. I don’t know why you humans eliminated it. It was probably the best game you’d made in centuries.”

“Okay-” Casey pointed a finger at Raph. “-we are so trying that some time, because that sounds like the sickest shit ever. Right now though? We’re doing the street version. Fire hockey can be later.”

“Sounds good to me. I’ll try not to burn you too badly when we do.”

“You can fuckin’ try, little man.”

“I think I will, stultas mortalium.”

“I don’t know what that means but fuck you.”

And with that, Casey flipped the ball into the air, and slapped it towards Raph.

The low traffic in Casey’s neighborhood was one of his favorite things about it, since it meant he could spend hours in the alley without worrying about cars. He hadn’t had a chance to play against someone on level with him in a long while- April only played sometimes, and none of Casey’s art buddies were much for sports- so facing off with Raph was refreshing.

Casey laughed in surprised every time Raph bent and dodged in a physically impossible way. The demon’s body hinged differently than a human’s, evident as he darted around the alley.

For such a stocky guy, Raph moved pretty quickly. Casey was built for speed, so he kept up easily, but damn could the guy move. Maybe it had to do with the tail, which likely helped Raph balance himself faster on the go, but Casey didn’t stop to consider that too much.

 _Anatomy examination later, hockey now_ , was his thought process.

Casey had better reach, because his arms were way longer than Raph’s, and he used that his advantage as best he could. He got a couple goals in on Raph like that, slamming the ball home between the trash cans they’d set up. Raph retaliated by using his suddenly there wings to give him a boost, and claimed an equal number of goals on Casey.

In all the rush and adrenaline, Casey forgot to watch himself.

He was too distracted, complete tunnel-vision around Raph’s fast moving form, and he mis-stepped at the wrong moment. A too sharp turn, and he pivoted on his left leg incorrectly.

Casey felt his knee lock up with a sharp pain, and he buckled before he could stop himself.

_“Casey- hey Casey! Shit, you alright?”_

Casey hissed between his teeth, hands tight around his throbbing joint. _“Fuck-_ no, no I’m- _fucking-_ god, I should have been more careful. Fuck. Fuck that hurts a lot.”

Two strong hands grabbed him by the armpits, and hauled him to his feet. Raph’s arm went under his, and Casey was suddenly being supported by an oddly concerned demon.

“What the hell was that?” Raph asked in a serious tone. “I didn’t even tap you.”

“Old injury, just get me to the step. I gotta stretch it out before it gets too stuck,” Casey said, wincing as he tried to put weight on his leg joint. Nope, hurt too much still. “Ah fuck. I’m gonna have to call it, I’m not walking on this the rest of the night.”

“How’d you hurt yourself like that? Don’t you humans have medicine to fix any injury these days?” Raph asked lowering Casey onto the back steps of the apartment complex.

“Hngh, not quite,” Casey said, easing his twinging muscles. He put his thumbs on either side of his knee, and started massaging. “I got badly fucked up in my knee joint when I was a kid. Well, not a kid. I was seventeen-ish. I got surgery right after, but it wasn’t enough to get me back on the ice.”

“What do you mean?” Raph asked, sitting down next to Casey. His tail brushed against Casey’s leg, starting to coil loosely around it, before Raph twitched it away again.

Casey watched the tail for a moment, and then refocused on his knee. He sighed heavily, trudging frustrations back up old. “All I ever wanted was to play pro. Be one of the greats and all that. I had talent too, which was part of why I was so damn driven. I knew I could do it if I really put my mind to it. I was even lined up for a full scholarship before… before the accident happened.”

Raph was still listening silently, so Casey continued. “I got sidelined by an oncoming car. The driver wasn’t even drunk or anything; he just didn’t see me crossin’ the street. Fucked my knee but good. Doctors told me straight up I wouldn’t be able to go professional, even once I got back on my feet. It was… it was hard, man. I’d bet a lot of shit on my career as a hockey player, and then it was gone-” Casey snapped his fingers. “-just like that. I lost my scholarship, and had to settle for takin’ out student loans for my new majors.”

“…I’m sorry to hear that happened,” Raph said. “It sounds like it was hard.”

Casey shrugged, a little weirded out by the genuine sympathy in the demon’s voice. “I got over it. Switched career paths to future freelance artist, and here we are. It’s not exactly what I dreamed of as a kid, but I like my life okay enough. Always loved fucking around in art class, so it wasn’t too bad of a switch.”

He was downplaying it. It’d been horrible the first year, going through physical therapy and coming to terms that everything he’d ever wanted just wasn’t going to happen. It’d sucked like nothing else, and Casey had been pretty much the picture of misery- until his sister shoved his sketchpad into his hands, and told him to stop being a mopey idiot.

Bless her; he should call her more often.

A magic rune circle suddenly popped up in front of him, and Casey blinked the flashes of light out of his sight as it disappeared just as quick. He looked questioningly at Raph, and the demon shrugged.

“Was just checking if that’s what you’d wanted when you summoned me,” Raph said, not looking directly at Casey. “Figured your sob story sounded like enough of a desire, you’d give even your soul for it.”

“But it’s not?” Casey asked, putting a hand on his chest where the circle had been.

“No, sorry,” Raph said, sounding like he meant it.

“It’s alright, it’s not your fault I didn’t take the chance when I had it,” Casey said, forcing nonchalance into his voice. _He would not be disappointed, he would not be disappointed-_ he’d gotten over that stuff years ago. Life was what it was, and there wasn’t any going back. Not even for that. “Think you could help me inside? I got some painkillers in the kitchen.”

“Sure.”

As Raph slung Casey arm over his broad shoulders, Casey had an idea.

“Wait, how about we try…”

A moment later, he was shooting up the four stories to his apartment balcony, carried by his demonic house guest. Casey whooped loudly- loud enough it scattered the pigeon family that’d started roosting on the rooftop.

April poked her head out her doors as they landed, and she barely raised an eyebrow at the wings Raph had. She looked instead at how Casey was watching his leg, and how Raph was still holding him up. “You hurt your leg again?”

“Ha, yup. Got too excited.”

“You should be more careful, or you’ll have a cane before you’re forty,” She said, shaking her head in admonishment.

“Careful is for when I’m old,” Casey joked.

“I don’t think ‘careful’ is actually in your vocabulary,” April said dryly, gesturing at the demon assisting Casey still. “Case and point with your current roommate.”

“She’s got you there,” Raph agreed.

“Hey, no ganging up on me you two. I’m out numbered here.”

 

 

 

Casey ended up taking it easy the rest of the evening, leg propped on a pillow on the coffee table. Raph was even kind enough to share the couch- which he’d claimed as his own lately- and leave enough space for Casey to be comfortable.

He fell asleep without noticing, his pain meds making him drowsy, and jerked awake when someone tapped him on the forehead.

April loomed over him, her eyes a little too wide and her hair in disarray.

Casey didn’t even blink at her random appearance; he was used to that by now. He glanced instead at the clock, and realized it was insanely late. He rubbed his eyes, yawning as he did. “Je- _sus_ April, what’re you doing in my apartment at three in the morning?”

“All-nighter,” April said in a flat tone, giving away just how long she’d been awake. “I need some of the plants I gave you.”

“Wha’ for?” Casey asked, still mostly asleep.

“Science.”

“Of course. You know where they are,” He gestured towards the tiny apartment around them. “Just take what you need. If they come back half a carnivorous species, just make sure you gimme instructions on how to feed them.”

“It’s bioluminescence this time,” April corrected absently, already moving in on Casey’s plants.

“Oh. Cool. Send pics of the results.”

“Will do,” April muttered, examining one of the small potted plants in her hands.

Casey yawned again, and turned his head as he remembered he wasn’t the only one on the couch.

Raph’s usually terse expression was absent, his features calm and resting. His arms were crossed over his broad chest, rising steadily as he breathed slow and deep. One of his horns was poking a hole into the cushion, but Casey figured some sausages in the morning would fix that.

Casey traced the strong jaw Raph had, as well as the skin he showed down his neck and shoulders. How the guy never got cold, wearing nothing but black jeans and red tank top all the time, Casey couldn’t tell. Maybe it was all that muscle and fire breath.

“I’m surprised you two are getting along so well, all of a sudden,” April commented, reappearing with four of Casey’s plants in her arms. She looked down at him, her eyes bright with sleeplessness and caffeine. “You were at each other’s throats just a few days ago, and now you’re playing footsies.”

Casey blinked, and realized his and Raph’s feet were touching on the small coffee table. Casey took his feet off the table, and started to stand up. “We’re just figuring shit out is all, nothin’ weird about that.”

“I didn’t say it was,” April said, eyeing Casey as he struggled to put pressure on his knee again. “You did though. Hm.”

“Don’t ‘hm’ me, April,” Casey said, shooting her a look. “You’re probably running on two energy drinks and seven hours of sleep to twenty-four awake. You don’t exactly think clearly like this.”

“No, of course not,” April said, an innocent smile gracing her features. “I know nothing about nothing. Go to bed Casey, I’m sure you two have a busy day tomorrow.”

“You get weird without sleep, April,” Casey said, choosing to ignore April’s insinuations.

“Don’t we all,” April tittered- actually tittered- as she headed for the still open door into Casey’s home. She pulled it shut with the toes of her bare feet, and disappeared as quietly as she appeared. The door somehow swinging shut without a sound.

Casey shook his head, and hobbled off to bed.

And April called _him_ weird. Demon guest notwithstanding, Casey was probably closer to normal than she was, even if she pretended otherwise.

 

 

 

Casey vaguely noted, as the days piled up, he got… comfortable, having his new roommate around.

Raph was still an asshole- but then again, Casey could be just as. It worked out.

They still tried at figuring out how to send Raph home, but… there wasn’t as much fervor as there used to be.

Casey didn’t question it, and didn’t bring it up. If he were honest- which he wouldn’t be- he didn’t quite want Raph to leave anymore.

Sure the guy still ate like no tomorrow, bitched about everything he could, and caused a general nuisance- but he was completely chill when he wasn’t doing all that.

Turned out Raph liked to sketch too, and traded Casey a flight in the sky for a pad and pencils. Best trade _ever_ , in Casey’s opinion. He’d never been that high up, excluding the one flight from New York to his university.

Raph had gone up to the roof with him, changed into his full form, and let Casey climb onto his back. Casey was instructed to hold onto Raph’s stiff crest, and to not let go.

Then they’d shot up into the air, and Casey had screamed with everything he had.

It was _incredible._

He could barely see at first, they’d been going so fast, but some magical trick of Raph’s fixed that. He managed to convince Raph to stay up in the air until Casey’s arms and legs were sore from tensing, and it was worth every ache later in the evening.

He ended up sketching the flowing way Raph could fly, once he was up in the air, while Raph sat across him on the couch and sketched… whatever he’d sketched. He wouldn’t show Casey it at all. Casey returned the favor, and kept his drawings to himself.

Raph started showing at his school again, but minus the destruction of property and ninja sneak attacks. Mostly, he avoided campus security, and strolled in and out of Casey’s free-study periods without care if Casey was working or not.

Casey’s classmates gave him questioning looks, and actually spoken questions, about the tank top guy who kept dropping by. Casey kept things vague.

“He’s just a guy I know,” He said, the fifth time someone asked.

“A guy who stops by every second period?” His easel buddy questioned incredulously.

“Yes,” Casey said shortly, then popping on his headphones so he didn’t have to answer any more queries.

Raph would also come and steal bits of Casey’s lunches- and April’s, when he could get away with it without injury by plastic cutlery. April wielded a mean fork, and an even meaner spork.

His two friends interacted with a dynamic of sniping and blunt questions, which was way too hilarious to watch as they tried to out smarm each other within a forty-five minute period.

When Raph had gone from ‘unwanted houseguest’ to ‘friend’, Casey couldn’t tell. He didn’t linger on that thought, same as all the other thoughts he wasn’t lingering on.

Casey started working on his mid-term project, finally laying down the sketched groundwork for it.

He pushed it to the very back of the studio, and put a sheet over it when he wasn’t there.

Casey had originally been used to only one person invading his home space- April- but he’d somehow adjusted quickly to having two. One of them being a constant presence, excluding when he disappeared for solo flights.

It was comfortable. Casey kind of really liked it, having company like Raph’s.

When he wasn’t trying to be a deliberate asshole, or setting something or someone on fire, he was fairly cool to hang around. Games, sketching, sometimes cooking if Casey could convince Raph to flash-fry things with his magic… it was fun. A lot of fun.

Casey avoided thoughts about Raph leaving, and started to only reluctantly work on remembering why he’d summoned him. He did it still, if only to keep the dynamic they had going, and because he felt a bit bad for trapping Raph on his plain of existence.

Raph wasn’t complaining a ton anymore though, so maybe he’d adjusted?

Casey didn’t mention that fact. He didn’t want to bring it to the demon’s attention, if it’d slipped by.

Things stayed pretty calm, until he came home after school about two and a half weeks into Raph’s stay, and found the demon hunched over something on the carpet.

Casey dropped his bag in horror, as he realized… there were shredded plants _everywhere_ on his carpet.

“Oh… no, no no no- _shit!”_ Casey grabbed at his hair, starting to panic. “Raph, please tell me you didn’t demolish April’s new plants. _Please_ tell me you didn’t!”

Raph’s tail lashed across the floor, sweeping more torn leaves around. Casey noticed it was weirdly puffy in places, but he ignored it as he started to march towards Raph. “Dude, _seriously._ Do you know how fricking important those were to her projects? She’s going to _kill us_ for this-”

Casey bit off the rest of his words, as Raph’s head whipped around, and Casey got a look at the demon’s eyes.

His sclera was still white, but his pupils were blown completely wide. His usually green eyes looked black.

Casey raised his hands defensively, the hair on the back of his neck standing up. “Whoooooa- okay. Okay. The fuck’s with you?”

Raph’s only response was a low growl, and another tail lash.

Casey stepped backwards from the crouching demon, hands still raised. Maybe it was time to go and find April’s water gun. “Yeah… uh, I’m just gonna go. You can keep those plants if you like. Um. April will just need to talk to you la- _AH FUCK-!”_

Raph suddenly bounded towards him, and Casey tried to turn tail and run- but a solid mass of muscle landed on his back, and his chin met the floor.

Sharp nails prickled his back, and Casey ineffectively tried to scramble out from under Raph’s weight. Casey may or may not have shrieked, as a rolling growl emanated from the chest pressed against him, and the size of the hands holding him increased.

Casey was halfway out of his head with panic- because _holy shit how did he forget that Raph could totally kill him at any time-_ when something raspy and wet went up the back of his neck.

Casey shrieked as the sensation repeated itself.

 _“What the FUCK Raph-?!”_  Casey yelled, cut off again as Raph’s tongue slid over his hair, and his words turned into another scream.

Casey struggled a few more times, but ultimately resigned himself to being groomed by the giant, stupid cat demon sitting on him. “You know what? I changed my mind about you being an okay guy. Fuck you.”

Raph’s only response was something that was almost definitely a purr.

Casey’s scalp was drenched by the time he remembered his keyset in his pocket.

Giant cat, fucking duh, he knew how to get the idiot off his literal back.

Casey ignored the way his arm hurt, wedging it between Raph’s scaly chest and the floor, and poked around in his pockets for his keys.

Soon as he had them, he tugged them free, and turned on the pen laser.

Raph’s grooming stopped, and then his weight vanished in a puff of smoke.

Casey scrambled onto his feet, shuddering at the cold feeling his wet hair gave him, and looked at the now mostly human Raph. The demon was staring intently at where the red dot had disappeared, tail lashing on the floor.

Casey looked at the laser in his hands, then back at Raph.

If he were someone else, this would be the time to duck and run.

He was not someone else.

Casey switched on the penlight again.

 

 

 

April kicked in his door the thirtieth time the walls shook, and she looked down right murderous.

“Casey. Fucking. _Jones._ ” She growled through her teeth, stalking into the room. “I don’t know if you know this, but that is the wall we _share,_ and I am trying to study right now, and-” She stopped, and zeroed in on the decimated plant life on the floor. “Are those my plants? _Casey.”_

Casey shied away from his neighbor’s fury, grinning sheepishly. "I’m sorry, I know, but _watch this."_

He whisked the penlight across the room, and Raph went flying into the wall following it. The resounding thump shook the wall and left a sizable dent, but Casey personally felt it was worth it.

“See? See??” Casey said, gesturing at the dazed demon. “He’s high as a kite and it’s fucking hilarious.”

April looked at Raph- pupils still blown wide and how he was all around puffy- and then back at Casey, who was trying to seem as innocent as possible. She didn’t look impressed.

“Okay in my defense- he was like this when I got here. I had nothing to do with the plants.”

“Sure.”

 _“Seriously!_ I was _totally_ going to come and find you, but you see this shit? I couldn’t just- just _not_ do this, I mean come on. How many chances am I going to-”

Casey shrieked as Raph jumped on his back again, and April watched passively as the demon held Casey to the floor.

“Okay, now this?” She said, cracking a smile as Raph started purring again. “This is hilarious.”

Casey stretched his arm out for the penlight, and fell short by an inch. “April- April help, he’s going to start- _AUGH FUCK-_ SEE?! HE’S GROOMING ME.”

“I’m seeing alright,” April said, still not helping Casey.

_“Apriiiiiiiiiil…”_

“You made your grave, lay in it with dignity,” April said unsympathetically as Raph’s heavy weight crushed Casey’s lungs.

“Help me!”

“Mmm… no thanks,” April said, reaching into her jeans pocket.

“Are- are you getting out your phone?”

“Yes I am.”

“Unbelievable.”

“Say _cheese_ , Casey,” April grinned, turning the camera on him and the demon on his back.

“You know what, fuck you too, April,” Casey said grumpily, flipping the camera and his friend off. “You’re both horrible people and I’m never trusting either of you again.”

“Technically, the demon currently grooming you like a kitten isn’t a people.”

“Fuck off.”

“Not until I’m finished with some blackmail.”

“Fuck _oooooooff.”_

April only laughed at his position on the floor, and Raph’s rumbling purr said exactly what he thought of the situation.

 

 

 

“You wouldn’t let me off the floor for a whole hour.”

“Shut up!”

“A whole. _Hour.”_

“I said I was sorry!”

“Sorry doesn’t change what happened!”

“Fuck you!”

“Fuck _you!_ April has blackmail on us now!”

Raph’s reply made the lights flicker, and the remaining plants in Casey’s apartment die.

Casey pointed a finger at him. “Okay, just because you’re being pissy, doesn’t mean you do black magic in the apartment.”

“It’s not black magic!” Raph exclaimed, throwing his hands up. “You humans invented that idea! Magic is magic! There’s no black or white or grey anything!”

“That sounds fake but okay.”

Raph hissed, and kicked the coffee table.

“I said leave off the coffee table!”

_“Fuck you!”_

April sent them both the video later that evening- for the third time, because she was cruel and heartless- and Casey and Raph couldn’t even watch the thing. Casey had honestly never been more mortified, and it was a hard thing to mortify him. Raph didn’t look any better off.

Raph had grabbed Casey’s phone, deleted the link, and looked him dead in the eye as he did. “We never speak of this to my family. We never speak of this again _at all.”_

“I don’t know who your family is, but agreed,” Casey said solemnly.

“And let’s hope you never do,” Raph said in a low tone, shoving the phone back at Casey and stomping out the balcony doors. He took off without a look back, and Casey didn’t blame him. There was a lot of space needed at the moment, and Casey completely welcomed it.

He went and took a long, long shower, and tried to erase from his mind the feeling of Raph’s tongue against his skin.

His mind drifted back to that one too many times though, and he had to switch to a cold shower halfway through.

His face felt like it was burning anyways.

Casey texted April when he got out of the shower, in an attempt to distract himself.

 

_youre evil, woman_

_EVIL_

 

_You wrecked my plants, and hilarious after effects or not, you deserved what you got for it._

_Who knew certain herbs could do that to a demon._

_I may have to write this down._

_dude fuck you_

_No thanks._

_delete the video_

_Nope._

_I made copies already, too._

_Scientific evidence._

_E V I L_

_EEEEEEVIIIIIIIL_

_So how did it feel to get completely dominated, Casey?_

_How was the tongue?_

_FUCKING BYE_

_WHY AM I FRIENDS WITH YOU_

_Because you like strong figures, both physically and mentally, to be in your life._

_Hint hint._

_IM DELETING YOUR CONTACT BYE APRIL_

_Goodnight, Casey._

_Sinful dreams._

_Whoops, I meant ‘sweet’._

_Or did I?_

 

_I HATE YOU LITERALLY SO MUCH_

_FUCK YOU APRIL_

_FUCK YOU_

 

Casey threw his phone into the corner of his laundry pile with a burning face, and vowed to never speak to April again.

Raph wouldn’t make eye contact with Casey for another day, and honestly? Casey could barely look at the guy himself. Space was  _very_   welcome at the moment.

Casey woke up to a fixed apartment though- dents and holes and claws scratches all gone- and figured that was enough of a peace treaty to warrant burying the embarrassing hatchet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stiiiill.... going....


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> answer to a few peoples' questions:
> 
> yes we are meeting the other demon bros. we are so, so doing that.

 

 

Somewhere about a week later, the whole ‘never’ part of meeting Raph’s family became untrue.

He’d been smoking a cigarette on his piss-tiny balcony, when an enormous shape flew up in front of him, and he’d nearly inhaled his whole cig.

Two huge limbs sank their claws into his apartment’s outside, while another two latched onto his balcony- causing it to bend dramatically.

Casey’s back slammed against the glass sliding door, and he fumbled to grab the handle.

Huge wings blocked the sun from view, as a hungry maw with rows of sharp teeth hung in front of Casey’s face.

Two glowing blue eyes stared at him, and the demon’s tongue lashed out to lick its lips.

 _“͝SO ̶Y̡OU͟’R͝E͡ THE͡ ̢H̢UMA͝N҉ W͏H͟O ͟CAŲG̢H͟T͟ RAP͟H́!́”͏ ̕_ The demon boomed. _“W͞ELL,́ ͡I͡ C̕A҉N͘ FI̕X̷ TH̵A̸T ̧E̷ASY̸!̴”̀_

Casey had about a second to sputter _“-the FUCK-?!”_   before an enormous hand closed around his waist, and he was ripped from his balcony.

Casey’s scream got lost in the wind, as the demon flew up into the air with him in its clutches.

He saw his apartment get further and further away, same as the ground got further and further away, as the demon spiralled higher with him into the sky. Casey couldn’t even try to fight the ascent, since the size and power difference was too great, and he was literally _thousands of feet in the air_ and that would just result in a Casey shaped pancake.

His lunch and stomach and probably everything else inside him got left behind, as the clouds started to get eye level with him and he approached a height that even he, a true adrenaline junkie through and through, _really didn’t want to ever experience._

Somewhere about absolutely _insane_ levels of height, the demon chose that moment to toss Casey up into the air like a rag doll, and swoop underneath with its mouth open.

Casey’s last thought would have been a mash of wordless screaming and cuss words, had it not been _another_ demon grabbing him out of the air, and narrowly saving him from being eaten alive- and not even in one bite.

Thankfully, the demon that grabbed him a second time was one he knew, and Casey wrapped his arms around Raph’s neck and screamed bloody murder.

“ _SHUT UP. I’M TRYING FLY, IDIOT,”_ Raph yelled into Casey’s ear, diving to the side to avoid the larger, fully transformed demon pursuing them.

 _“-SHIT -FUCK- FUCKING- WHAT THE_ HELL _WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCKING HELL-”_

Red runes briefly flickered around them both, and the stinging speed of wind eased around Casey, and suddenly he could inhale properly again.

He started to thank Raph, but it turned into another shriek as the bigger demon came dangerously close to catching them.

“I said shut up!” Raph shouted, folding his wings and diving to the side again.

Casey ignored him, and attempted to wrap himself tighter around Raph as they kept flying. “ _What the FUCK is going on, Raph?!”_

“Currently? We’re flying for your life.”

“Not _our_ lives?!”

“No, this is all on you,” Raph said, calm despite the bone-rattling roar that followed them. “This guy wants you dead and me to go home.”

 _“Who the hell is he?!”_ Casey yelled, stomach making its way into his throat as they turned upwards sharply. Over Raph’s wings and shoulders, he caught another glance of the pursuing demon.

Mouth still open and hungry, with a somehow gleeful expression, the demon chasing them was definitely bigger than Raph was; both in semi-human form, and demon form. His crest was slightly different than Raph’s too, edged with orange and curly seeming.

There were other details too- _ram like horns, different colored eyes, and a slimmer build in general_ \- but Casey was mostly stuck on the fact that the demon wanted him for lunch, and the size of its fangs.

“So, I don’t know if you figured this out yet or not-” Raph said, avoiding another swipe at them. “-but that’s my brother.”

“Why the shit is he trying to KILL ME?!”

“To free me from our contract, obviously. He probably thinks you’ve got me enthralled or something.”

Raph then twisted in midair, and landed a solid kick at his brother’s temple just as he’d tried to take a chomp at them. The blow made an audible _crack_ , and the other demon spun off sideways in the air.

Even in his smaller form, Raph’s strength never did diminish. Casey noted that keenly, as Raph held him without issue; hovering in the air with steady beats of his wings.

Casey reminded himself that now was not the time to be thinking about the size of Raph’s muscles.

The demon below rightened himself, a couple hundred feet down and diminishing that distance, and Casey tightened his hold around Raph’s neck again.

“He’s coming back,” Casey said nervously.

“Yeah. He’s faster than me too, so no point in running too far,” Raph said, because that made Casey feel _so_ _much better_. “I’m stronger though, no matter what forms we’re in.”

“Uh, yeah, now would be a good time to punch his lights out then.”

“Can’t yet, have to wait another moment.”

“How come- _oh wait fuck no Raph please move come on come on he’s dOING A THING COME ON JUST MOVE ALREADY-”_

The demon- Raph’s apparent psycho relative- had opened his mouth, and a ring of magic was materializing in front of it. It looked way too much like a laser beam thing for Casey to mistake it for anything else.

Big surprise: it was a laser beam thing.

Raph’s unnamed demon brother opened his mouth wide, and shot a bright orange beam into the air. Right. At. _Them._

Raph dodged almost lazily, and Casey felt his skin get warm as they skirted the blast.

He might’ve screamed again.

Casey watched with a horrified expression, as the beam exploded in the clouds above, and cleared the overcast for miles around. The cheery sunshine felt very out of place, considering the situation.

Casey might’ve managed to say something along the lines of _“what the actual FUCK”_ , but it probably came out garbled.

“Yeah, he does that sort of thing a lot,” Raph said, not _nearly_ as concerned as Casey felt he should be. He glided to the side, still watching his brother’s progression below. “He’s not the strongest physically speaking, but I’m pretty sure there aren’t many beings out there that got more magic than he does. Finesse ain’t his department, but Mikey gets shit done when he feels like it.”

“This is really cool but also really fucking terrifying can we go back to the ground yet and tell your brother to _stop trying to kill me?!”_

“Working on it,” Raph replied shortly, before diving without warning, and taking Casey with him. Casey’s shrill scream followed them all the way to the ground, and he felt justified in that considering they were plummeting from _thousands of feet in the air._

As they slowed their descent, Casey grabbed Raph’s horn, pulled the demon’s ear towards him, and shouted, _“CAN WE FUCKING NOT?!”_

Raph’s response was to snarl in annoyance, and dump Casey onto the first apartment roof they flew over.

Casey tried to stand right away, but his legs gave out, and he ended up on his hands and knees panting. His head felt like it’d been swirled around in a blender, and he wasn’t entirely sure if he still had all his internal organs.

Now that he wasn’t in mortal peril anymore, Casey’s lips split in a semi-hysterical grin.

_What a rush._

“You have a serious problem with adrenaline rushes,” Raph commented, because apparently Casey had been talking out loud. He glanced down at Casey, and looked half concerned. “I’ll take care of this, but you’ll have to give me a bit of blood.”

“Why?”

“It looks like Mikey’s running on full power right now. Probably got a hold of a new contract, lucky bastard. If you don’t want him to wipe the floor with me, I’ll need a bit of a boost.”

“Fine, whatever. Let’s get it over with.”

Raph’s short thumb claw split the skin on Casey’s arm, and he swiped a few droplets of blood from there.

Casey watched as Raph licked the blood away from his finger- following the action keenly- and saw the demon’s irises fill his whole sclera.

Raph’s grin was wide enough to show all his teeth, and he seemed more than a little excited.

_“͝Now͏ w̛e̸’re ͝t҉a̸lk̸i͢n̵g͝.”_

Changing into a swirl of smoke, re-solidifying, and taking off into the air with huge beats of his wings, Raph nearly knocked Casey over as he rose into the sky in full demon form.

Just in time too, since Mikey- _weird name for a demon, honestly-_ slammed into him right after.

Casey watched as the two giant winged demons spun through the air, and went crashing into the streets below. Casey’s legs were still being uncooperative, so he half crawled towards the edge of the three story building he was on, and looked down at where they’d fallen.

Raph kicked Mikey off, sending the larger demon rolling away, and rightened himself. Casey didn’t even have time to comprehend what was happening, before Raph opened his mouth and blew a white hot stream of fire at his brother.

Mikey seemed unaffected, other than bellowing loudly as he flew back up into the air. Raph shot another stream of flames at his brother, following him upwards, but again didn’t do any damage. The flames just skimmed over Mikey’s thick scales like nothing.

Casey noted vaguely that car alarms were going off all down the street, and that the two demons had put a sizable crater in the road. Also set fire to the road.

Oh boy.

His phone, which had miraculously stayed in his pants pocket the whole time, buzzed quietly, and Casey fumbled with numb fingers to get it out.

“Hello?”

_“CASEY WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON OUT THERE?!”_

Casey leaned away from his phone; April’s shriek nearly deafening him. “Uh, well, Raph’s brother kind of dropped by to eat me, aaaand…” An explosion went across the sky, an echoing boom heard even down on ground level. “They’re sort of battling to the death right now. I think. I’m not really sure what’s happening anymore, but I’m pretty sure I’d be okay dying after seeing something this awesome.”

April made a bunch of incoherent sounds into the receiver, and all Casey could tell was that she was mad.

_“YOU HAVE A PROBLEM, CASEY JONES.”_

“You and Raph agree on that, at least.”

_“WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU ANYWAYS. YOU’RE NOT UP IN THE SKY WITH THE TWO IDIOT HELL-SPAWNS, RIGHT?”_

“Why are you still yelling?”

_“BECAUSE I’M FREAKING OUT LEAVE ME ALONE. THEY JUST DEMOLISHED HALF OUR NEIGHBORHOOD STREET OH MY GOD-”_

“I think I’m immune to shock at this point, honestly,” Casey said evenly, to which April replied, _“BECAUSE YOU’VE BEEN LIVING WITH AN ACTUAL DEMON FOR OVER THREE WEEKS NOW AND YOU’RE AN IDIOT.”_

Casey watched as Raph dive-bombed Mikey from above, grabbed his brother’s wings, and crashed them straight into the ground. The resounding impact set off another wave of car alarms, and Casey was fairly sure there were people starting to scream in the distance now.

_“WHAT WAS THAT?!”_

“Raph crashing them into the street. I gotta find a way off this roof and see if he’s alright. I’ll call you back.”

_“Casey no WAIT-!”_

Casey hung up his phone, and forcing his legs to start working again, he ran for the fire escape.

 

 

 

By the time he got to the impact site- and avoided all the dazed looking civilians that were just staring creepily off into space- Raph was back in human-ish form, and holding another human-ish man under his arm.

“So.” Raph said, tightening his hold on the struggling man. “This is my brother, Mikey. He’s a fucking moron, and he’s sorry for trashing your neighborhood. Also for trying to eat you.”

“Aw c’mon Raphie, it was just gonna be a few bites-”

“Shut it!” Raph snapped, whacking the Mikey’s curling horns with his free hand. Mikey whined and struggled harder. “You know our rules about stealing a contract!”

“Pssh, rules _smules_ , they don’t apply to me, dumbass,” Mikey said, blowing a raspberry at Raph as he struggled free. “I dunno why you all insist on followin’ them. I have no trouble getting around without ‘em.”

“Yeah, but nothing sane seems to apply to you at all, so that wouldn’t fucking _work for me.”_

“Uh, not interrupt your reunion or whatever,” Casey jerked a thumb at the destruction surrounding them. “But you kind of trashed everything, and there’s like a couple hundred people staring off into space right now. The fuck is up with that?”

“Oh, ‘s my auto defense spells,” Mikey said, waving a hand dismissively. “Donnie helped me make ‘em centuries ago, on account of me always forgetting to erase peoples’ memories of whatever I do. They’ll think it was an earthquake or something.”

“The… the roads though… and that one house you destroyed too…”

“Right! Gimme a sec!”

Casey was then blinded, because Mikey summoned the _biggest fucking magical circle ever,_ and proceeded to cover everything in neon orange.

Casey rubbed his eyes, trying to blink away the spots. He finally got his vision back, and saw that everything was back to normal, Mikey had his hands on his hips looking proud, and Raph had his head in his hands, mumbling despairingly.

“SO! Proper introductions!” Mikey said, putting out a hand for Casey to shake. His long fluffy tail swished behind him excitedly, in time with the bounce of his dark curls. “I’m Michelangelo, also called Mikey, also called-”

Raph slapped a hand over Mikey’s mouth.

“No true names!” He said with a growl. Then he yanked his hand away, wiping it on his shirt.

“Did you…?” Casey blinked at Mikey. “Did you just lick his hand?”

“Yup,” Mikey said, and he grabbed Casey’s hand as he did. “Nice to meet you, and sorry for trying to eat you earlier. I thought you’d enslaved my brother or something!”

Mikey’s hand suddenly gripped Casey’s hand tighter, painfully tight, and he smiled in a scary way. All teeth and threat.

“That’s not what’s happening here, _right?”_ Mikey asked, smiling dangerously.

 _“Nope,”_ Casey squeaked, feeling his bones grind together. _“N-not at all.”_

“Great!” Mikey cheered, releasing Casey’s hand and returning to his less threatening expression. “That means I don’t have to kill you then, which would have sucked since Raph totally-”

Raph grabbed his brother’s mouth again, and hissed something rapid and low in Mikey’s ear. The exchange was over before Casey could question it, and then Raph was steering Casey back towards the apartment’s direction.

“C’mon, I have a feeling April will be wanting an explanation,” Raph said in a tired voice. “And we need to pick up some groceries. A lot of groceries.”

“Uh. Why?”

“You’ll thank me later if we just do this now instead of when he gets hungry.”

Casey remembered the teeth on Mikey’s demon form, and the hungry way he’d been looking at Casey even in human form.

“Right. Probably a good plan.”

They bought three packages of ice pops, and six packages of raw meat. Casey got the same cashier he’d been getting for the past three weeks, and he raised an eyebrow at Casey’s twitchy new friend, and how he yet again was buying copious amounts of raw meat products.

Casey just shook his head at the man, and paid for their food.

At least Mikey was willing to carry half the load, even if it meant he ate half of that half before they even got home.

April met them at the door with a super-soaker and a determined expression. Casey couldn’t do much other than gesture helplessly at the demons accompanying him.

April didn’t flinch as Mikey flowed towards her, all bubble and cheer while moving like a predatory wild cat.

Mikey tried all of point ten seconds to intimidate her, before April shut him down with a few facial blasts of holy water.

 

 

 

Somehow no one died, and somehow Mikey ended up sitting in front of Casey’s television without too much fuss. Playing video games with all the enthusiasm of a kid, and not an eons old demon.

“So how long is he staying?” Casey whispered to Raph across the kitchen table. “My apartment is tiny as is, and he’s kind of nuts.”

“He’s mostly harmless if he’s distracted,” Raph said, apparently unbothered by his brother’s murderousness. He licked the popsicle in his hand again. “Let him play with the games until he’s bored and then he’ll bugger off to bother someone else.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Keep a stock of these,” Raph waved the popsicle he had. “And don’t try to make any deals with him.”

“Why not? I mean, I won’t,” Casey said, because the idea sounded a bit like cheating on Raph somehow. “But why not?”

“Do you remember the Dancing Plague of fifteen-eighteen?”

“The what now?”

“Figures,” Raph said, rolling his eyes. His tongue snaked out to lick his popsicle, and he continued. “Basically? Mikey made a deal with this guy for his soul. Just some peasant, no point in life and no hope either. He was bored, Mikey was bored, and the guy wanted to make a contract. You know what he asked for?”

“Uh… no.”

“A chance to figuratively watch the world around him burn, because he hated his life and hated his village,” Raph said. His expression was making Casey feel uncomfortable, and he stayed silent as Raph continued. “What happened next was Mikey feeling like getting a bit creative with that request, and it getting _way_ out of hand.

“Essentially, this guy? He danced until he died, and he took a whole lot of other people down with him. A few hundred, dead because they danced until their bodies literally gave out and killed them. Better yet- or worse I guess- it spread, like some kind of virus. It hit most of the village, and kept going until it suddenly stopped.”

Raph looked Casey seriously in the eye, grim despite the rainbow pop in his hands. “It only stopped because Mikey got tired of it, and left. It would have kept going if he hadn’t. He killed a good number out of four hundred people before he stopped. He didn’t even take most of their souls, just the first ten.”

Casey gulped.

“That’s really fucking scary, honestly,” He said in a tight voice. “I mean. It’d be pretty cool if it wasn’t real, but, uh, yeah. Scary.”

“I’m gonna level with you here. We’re not actually sure just how powerful Mikey is, or how much damage he could do if he felt like it. He might even outclass our older sister, and she’s the scariest thing you could ever imagine meeting.”

“Uh. Wow.”

“Yup,” Raph licked his popsicle again, and settled back into his chair. “So keep freezie-pops and shit around all the time, and give him access to the game counsel. It’s in your best interest until he leaves.”

Casey sweated nervously, and darted a glance at Mikey.

The demon seemed a lot like Raph, if taller and slimmer. Dark hair dark skin, horns tail teeth, etc.

He had a different feel to him though. Wilder. Kind of feral.

Mikey’s laughter sounded normal enough, but something in the back of Casey’s brain said _‘run’._

Casey made a note to go buy more treats before they ran low.

He turned back to keep talking with Raph, maybe question just who else in Raph’s family he needed to watch for, but his words choked in his throat.

Raph’s tongue was wrapped around the popsicle in his hand, and slowly pulling back into his mouth.

Casey swallowed thickly, watching the long pink tongue recede.

Wow it was kind of hot in here.

Raph’s tongue slurped back into his mouth, and then he took a bite out of the ice treat, sharp teeth going straight through it without issue.

Casey winced, and swallowed thickly for a different reason.

“Something wrong?”

 _“Nope,”_ Casey said in a strangled voice.

 

 

 

_april help i might have a problem_

_I’ve been expecting this for a while now._

_How bad is it?_

_pretty bad_

_Give me a rough estimate._

_i had a ‘oh no hes hot’ moment_

_twice today_

_pls help_

_See me tomorrow evening for movies and dinner at my place. No demons allowed._

_i wasnt planning on bringing him anyways but okay_

_april help he just took off his shirt_

_he got popsicle juice on it bc mikey tried to do tackling thing and_

_fuck_

_aprilhelpthatsalotofchest_

_Cold water, preferably iced, is advisable here._

_Or so I’m told._

_ohgodihateeverything_

 

 

Casey dragged himself out of bed the next morning, thanking every god he could think of that it was Sunday, and shuffled out into the living room.

Raph and Mikey were tangled in a big pile of limbs on the carpet, both of them half shifted and completely asleep. Darkened by scales that went up most of their arms and legs, but tapered off before it hit their faces; their wings were visible too, flopped out without much care. Mikey was on his back, quadrupedal limbs sticking straight in the air.

It was sort of cute, in a weird way. If you ignored how Mikey was technically a mass murderer and Raph was probably also that.

Yeah. Still weirdly cute, even with that added.

Casey shuffled back into his room, got his phone, and took a couple pictures. Because blackmail.

He saved the photos- sending a few to April too- and paused as he started to put it away.

On a last second decision, he snapped a close up of Raph in particular.

Then he chucked his phone back into his room, and totally didn’t feel his ears get hot as he went to get breakfast started.

Mikey wandered off somewhere around noon, waving a cheery goodbye as he took with him the rest of the freezies. He said he’d be back by the time dark rolled around, and Casey didn’t question what he’d be doing all day. He probably didn’t want to know.

He ended up working on his literary homework for a change, instead of his art homework. He hated working on the essays, despite being pretty good with the assignments.              He really just preferred drawing and painting to writing.

Raph spent the day lounging on the couch, again wrecking the springs since he was still half shifted. Casey migrated over there as he fought with his project, ending up slouched on one end of the couch with his legs hanging over Raph’s while they watched TV. The tail sort of got in the way, but once Casey got it behind his back, it provided support instead.

They didn’t even talk much. Just hung out in silence while the TV droned on, and Casey struggle with his laptop keyboard. It actually a really nice change from Casey’s usual weekend pace, which involved a lot more partying.

Though, dealing with psychotic demon relatives was enough of a party for one weekend, so Casey figured he’d covered that part already.

Casey didn’t actually notice, until the afternoon rolled by, that he was comfortable pretty much all around. Hanging out with Raph like this, minus the elbowing and insults and general rough housing… it was downright _domestic._

Casey took that thought, shoved it _waaaaaaaaaay_ into the back of his skull, and focused entirely on the homework in his lap. He also definitely didn’t focus on just where his lap was situated, still hanging over Raph’s legs because Casey’s couch was too small for them both like this.

Sometimes Raph’s tail would twitch and slide around, since it was pinned under Casey’s legs, and Casey would have to focus a bit harder on his homework.

He stubbornly didn’t move though. Because he liked doing this, and he had an essay to do, and he was comfortable dammnit. Frustrating feelings he didn’t want to deal with weren’t going to chase him off, no siree.

By the time he finished his essay, edited, saved, and sent to his teacher, it was time to go over to April’s. Raph didn’t make any comment on Casey easing himself out of the couch pile, and Casey only said a quick goodbye before he left.

He ended up on April’s couch instead a few minutes later, screaming into her throw pillows while April patted his head.

“It was _domestic._ Domestic and _terrible.”_

“Oh I’ll bet.”

“April help I’m feeling things, make it stop.”

“When have you listened to anyone? I’m not going to even try.”

_“Apriiiiiiiiiiiiil…”_

“I’ve said it a number of times, and I’ll say it again. You do these things to yourself, Jones.”

Casey glared up at her, April ignoring his glare as she continued watching the horror movie they had on her television. He turned his head back into the pillow beside April’s thigh, and resumed screaming into it.

She put a hand on his head, and patted it gently. “Oh Casey. I don’t know how you’ve survived this long.”

Casey yelled louder into the pillow.

“Have you thought about where you’re going to go with these ‘feelings’ of yours?”

 _“No,”_ Casey said miserably to his pillow. “Like. Fuck. Number one rule: don’t feel anything for a dude you don’t know the sexuality of. It’s a one way ticket to feeling like shit.”

“Hm.”

“I made that mistake a couple times.”

“Oh Casey,” April said again, carding her fingers into his hair. “You’re making a fine mess of yourself. Can’t you just turn the feelings off?”

“That’s not how feelings _work_ , April.”

“Sounds fake but okay.”

“ _You_ sound fake.”

A couple screams of terror came from the television, and April made an interested sound at something that sounded like a dead body falling to the ground.

Casey rolled away from his pillow, staring at the television. Someone else died on screen, joining their friend on the floor. He thought that might’ve been the couple characters.

“He has to leave anyways,” Casey said. “There’s no point.”

“Hmmm…” April replied, scratching his scalp still.

“You’re not helping anything, April.”

“Casey, I don’t know what you want me to say.”

 _“ ‘that must really suck, I’m sorry your life is awful’._ Or something.”

“That must really suck. I’m sorry your life is awful,” April said with only a hint of smarm.

Casey lifted his head and let it drop heavily back against her thigh. “There you go. Was that so hard?”

“Oh, just the worst.”

 Casey snorted a laugh, which drew one out of April, and they both ended up giggling together while another two people died on screen.

Casey laughter tapered off, and he sighed.

He didn’t even need to speak. April knew what he was thinking anyways.

“You’ll figure things out,” April said, patting his head only a little patronizingly. “You usually do, even if it involves destruction of property and ill-used house products.”

“Okay that was _one time_ with the Febreeze. _One time.”_

“One time too many.”

“Like you do less dangerous shit.”

“I do it in my lab, not someone’s basement.”

“We don’t have a basement, so you just use your bathroom and kitchen.”

“Hush. At least it’s my own property.”

“Hypocrite.”

 

 

 

 

When Casey returned to his apartment, after spending two movies worth of ranting at April, Raph was still on the couch.

He’d changed back into his mostly human form, and was lounging comfortably. He raised a hand to Casey. “Yo.”

Casey found himself grinning, despite the thoughts he was very carefully pushing to the back of his mind. “Yo.”

It was a novel feeling, coming home to somebody.

It was nice and cozy feeling for about five seconds, and then a portal opened in the middle of the living room, spewing both Mikey and about a hundred little demony bat things into the air.

Casey spent the next two hours herding and squashing things with his hockey stick, and didn’t have any more time to linger on Raph or his thoughts.

Casey texted April before he went to sleep, just to check in why she hadn’t come to find out what all the noise had been about.

 

_yo april_

_surprised you didnt bust in with the super-soaker_

_figured we made enough noise to wake the dead_

_I only heard the first five minutes of it, and then I put some of my noise cancelling headphones on._

_cold, apes_

_cooooooold_

_I figured you could take care of yourself. You are you after all._

_If you ended up dead, I promise I would have mourned you for at least a week._

_cooooooooooooooooooooooooold_

_Oh hush up. You’re fine you big baby._

_my heart is hurting you monster_

_You’re the one with a literal monster in your apartment._

_Two in fact._

_yeah and both of them are fucking up my couch springs with their fat demon asses_

_Interesting, and you know for a fact that they are ‘fat demon asses’?_

_Just where have you been looking, Casey?_

_shut up_

_Interesting._

_im not talking to you anymore_

_im deleting your contact_

_Maybe I’ll finally get some peace that way._

_watch me im doing it right now_

_Goodnight Casey, have fun with your call boy._

_SHUT UP_

_DONT CALL HIM THAT_

_AND ARENT YOU SUPPOSED TO MAKE ME FEEL BETTER ABOUT ALL THIS AND NOT TEASE ME_

_I can do both._

_Also. You’re the one who used the term first, while we were discussing your ‘budding feelings’._

_You said, and I quote, “It’s like I rang up a call boy for a one-night thing, and then it got serious”._

_*Eyebrow waggle*_

_S H U T   U P_

_I HATE YOU SO MUCH_

_STOP WAGGLING THOSE EYEBROWS_

_YOURE BANNED FROM EYEBROW WAGGLING_

_You’re like my own personal soap-opera, Casey._

_SHUUUUUUT_

_UUUUUUUUP_

 

Casey swore he could hear April laughing at him through the walls, and he scowled.

 

 

 

Mikey turned out to be less of a hassle, once Casey laid some ground rules about him hanging around.

No summoning portals in the living room. Or the bathroom. Gore stayed on the balcony, and got cleaned up before the neighbors saw. Under no circumstances did you touch April’s plants. Don’t go near April’s apartment at all. Keep the TV volume low at night, and when he was studying. Demon brawls were done outside the house, and if you damaged the furniture before getting there, you fixed it. No killing or soul sucking anyone within a fifty miles radius of the apartments. Do not ever- and Casey really meant _ever-_ touch April’s plants.

Mikey listened to most of the rules, except about staying off April’s balcony.

She’d come outside to water the tens of potted plants she had there, seen Mikey perching on the railing like a demented stray cat, and turned around to go back inside. Casey, who’d been smoking on his own balcony and quietly resigned to Mikey bringing April’s version of hell down on them all, raised an eyebrow at the cocky grin Mikey gave him.

The grin vanished as April reappeared with the super-soaker, and blasted the demon off her balcony. Mikey went down with a yowl, spiralling towards the ground below and landing in an undignified heap.

“He’s fine,” Raph whispered from behind Casey, glancing after at his brother. “He could probably take a nuclear war head and be fine. He’s just a drama queen.”

“Keep off my damn lawn,” April said, leveling the gun threatening at Casey and Raph. The shorter demon edged behind Casey, and Casey held his hands up in surrender.

“We will, I swear,” Casey promised.

“Mikey might not, but you can- you know.” Raph suggested, sticking his arm around Casey and gesturing at the gun.

“Oh I will. I most certainly will.” April said, eyes narrowed and dangerous. She then lowered the gun, and finished watering her plants.

As April shut her balcony doors behind her, and Casey sighed in relief.

“She scares me,” Raph admitted under his breath.

“She scares everyone,” Casey said comfortingly.

A whiny yowl came from down below.

“Except Mikey.”

“Everyone at least a little sane.”

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kind of short, but lots of feelings in this one!

“So how many more siblings do I gotta watch out for?” Casey asked, tossing a rubber ball up into the air and catching it before it hit his face. Mikey was out for the evening, and Casey figured he’d take the moment to ask some important questions. Like just how many demons were going to be gunning for his life.

Maybe he was handling this better than he should be. Hm.

“Two at least, three if we’re really unlucky,” Raph said from his position a few feet away. They were lying on the floor, because Casey was stuck on an essay, and felt like procrastinating as long as he could.

“Shit. Big family?”

“I guess. It’s big by some standards, tiny by others. Depends on what dimensional plain we’re hanging around in.”

“Who’re the other two or three sibs you got? I just got the one, and she lives back in New York with my dad.”

“Two more brothers, one older sister. Plus her wife.”

“None of the rest of you married?”

“Nah. Most demons don’t do that shit. Karai’s just a huge sap underneath all the murderous intent.”

Casey turned his head, glancing towards Raph. This was more information he’d gotten on the demon’s family in one go, in comparison to the few weeks he’d been living with Casey.

“Can you tell me about them?” Casey asked. “I’ll tell you about mine.”

Raph blew out a gust of air, and rubbed his face. “I’m technically not supposed to, and Donnie would get pissed I bet, but sure. Why not. You seem less likely to use the info against us than most humans. Too stupid to do anything useful with it.”

“Wow. Fuck you.”

Raph laughed, the sound coming from his chest. “So basically, Karai was our sire’s first ‘kid’ so to speak, and then came the four of me and my brothers. There’s a couple eon’s difference in age, and Karai lords it over us all the time. Bitch.”

“Sire?”

“Equivalent of our dad. He’s basically this near god level demon, and has claim over a good number of dimensions.”

“Dude… _sick.”_

“He’s less cool than he sounds. He used to be a really active power, but the last couple centuries he’s really mellowed out. He spends most of the time possessing people so he can watch his soaps.”

“Still though…” Casey said, trying to imagine Raph’s dad. He probably was huge, way huger than Raph. Probably more horns too. And spikes. Shit he should totally draw that some time. “Why’d he chill out though? If _I_ were a demon overlord, you couldn’t get me to do that even if you tried.”

“He’s old,” Raph explained plainly. “He’s been alive longer than any mortal being can comprehend, and he’s getting ready to step down.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yep. One of us’ll be next in line, unless someone tries to steal the spot like his brother did.”

“You and your sibs?”

“Yeah. It might be Karai, might be Leo. Donnie doesn’t want anything to do with it, and I’m with him on that. It’s a lot of work to police dimensions. Off chance it could be Mikey, but we’d probably see the collapse of a number of realties if that happened.”

“Yikes.”               

“Yeah. It’ll probably be Karai. She is the oldest.”

“How’s that work anyways?” Casey asked. “Like, are little demon babies are a thing?”

“Not really. Either you’re made into a demon artificially, or you’re sired as one. With sired demons, like me and my siblings, we start as semi-sentient blobs made from two or more essences, and get nurtured by whichever demon is the main ‘parent’. Mine was my dad.”

“Who was the mom then? Or did your dad have a fling with chaos or somethin’,” Casey half joked, thinking of Mikey.

Raph didn’t answer, suddenly going quiet. Casey turned to look at him again, and saw Raph staring at the ceiling with an unreadable expression. “Raph?”

“She. She, uh… she died, pretty much right after she brought us into existence,” Raph said, voice soft. “I only knew her for a little while, and then she was gone.”

“Dude, shit,” Casey said, suddenly feeling like a nosy asshole. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“No, it’s fine,” Raph said, sighing. “You asked and I answered.”

“I’m still sorry. What happened, if you don’t, uh, mind me asking about that too?”

“Well… she was human, for starters. My dad fell in love with her.”

That really got Casey’s attention. “Yooooo… demons can fall for humans?”

“Everyone can love, or so my dad says. Anyways,” Raph coughed awkwardly. “She wasn’t from this dimension, but it was close enough in design that it had humans still. My dad sort of just… met her one day, and knew she was the one. He was possessing a human at the time, and he literally bumped into her on accident.”

“Sounds kinda like a rom-com plot,” Casey commented. “But with demons.”

“Ha, yeah I guess. Point being, they fell in love, yada yada yada, and spent a few years being happy and stuff. She even knew my dad was a demon and thought it was fine.”

“She sounds like a cool lady,” Casey said honestly.

Raph grinned fondly. “Yeah. I only sort of remember her, since I wasn’t like, fully alive yet, but she was. She definitely was.” His grin slipped, and a hint of grief appeared in his eyes. “She gave her soul to my dad to save us all.”

“…how so?”

“My dad had a brother, another big time demonic influence. He wanted my dad’s turf, and he came for him when he realized my dad had created a chink in his defenses,” Raph sighed, long and heavy. “Tang Shen. She was the chink. She also ended up being the thing that defeated my dad’s brother.

“He’d poisoned us, me and my brothers. We were already starting to form inside mom, and he poisoned our essences. It was killing Tang Shen too, but it was mostly meant of us. Karai was already a fully-fledged demon, so my technical uncle went after my dad’s unborn spawn instead. Easier targets for eliminating potential successors or usurpers.

“It ended up being us or Tang Shen, and… she chose us. Told my dad to take her soul, and use its power to revive us and destroy his brother...”

“And then what?” Casey asked as Raph trailed off.

“And then he did,” Raph finished, still staring at the ceiling. “She died right after, since taking a human’s soul right away will kill them. I… I sort of miss her still. It’s been a really, really long time, but…”

Raph trailed off again, and a solemn quiet settled in the room.

Casey turned his eyes to the ceiling, feeling uncomfortable with how quickly things had gotten serious.

“That got heavy really fast,” Casey commented in a hushed voice.

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“ ‘s cool. My turn then.” Casey tossed his rubber ball again, and caught it as it fell. “I got my dad and my sister still, but I, uh, lost my mom too. She got pretty sick one year when I was still a kid, and just… never got better. It sucked really bad for a long time. My dad had it especially hard, since he had two kids to feed, a whole lot of bills to deal with, and not a lot of extra support. So I. Uh. I get it. Missin’ your mom even after a long time.”

“…hey Casey?”

“Yeah Raph?”

“Lemme try something.”

Casey felt more than saw the runes appear on his chest, and watched as it fizzled out again right after. He blinked, sitting up halfway to put a hand on the spot. “What was that for?”

“I was seeing if… if what you’d wanted was your mom to come back. I could do that. One soul for another. Um. It wasn’t though. I’m sorry.”

Casey blinked, and bit his lip.

That sounded too good to be true, and he wasn’t sure what he thought of his past self for not taking that chance. Even if he hadn’t known there was one.

“It’s fine,” Casey said quietly. “You gotta keep moving forwards an’ stuff no matter what. ‘s my motto. I’m not really surprised I didn’t ask for that.”

Casey missed his mom, and probably always would, but he wasn’t sure if he could do that to his family. To his mom. Bring her back and throw everything into chaos.

It was probably best he hadn’t made that his desire, even if the idea dragged back up old hurts. Of wanting to give anything to get her back.

Casey swallowed thickly, and rubbed his eyes.

Raph didn’t say anything, other than shifting onto his side, facing away from Casey. After a minute, Casey lay back down as well.

They lay there in silence, Casey listening to the kitchen clock ticking, and the slow breaths Raph was taking.

Oh god things had gotten awkward. Heavy and awkward. Why had Casey even _asked_ that shit?

He’d wanted to know more about demons, not dead moms. Why did things always turn into dead moms?

Life imitates art or something like that.

“You wanna go play street hockey?” Casey asked, trying to get rid of the smothering feeling of grief.

“Yeah. Yeah I do. Don’t fuck up your knee this time.”

“No promises.”

 

 

 

Mikey didn’t come home that night, and Casey knew that for sure because he fell asleep on the couch with Raph, waiting up for the wayward demon.

Casey woke briefly, because some red light had been hovering over him, and it’d roused him.

 _“ ‘s goin’ on…”_ Casey slurred, mostly asleep still.

“ _Shh_ , it’s nothing,” Said a dark shape close by him. “Go back to sleep.”

“Raph…? What’re you doin’…”

“Just… just something. Don’t worry about it. Just go back to sleep already, I’ll see you in the morning.”

Maybe a few weeks ago, Casey would’ve woken up all the way and demanded to know what was happening. But now?

“Sure,” Casey mumbled, turning onto his side and pushing his face into the couch cushions. “Go t’ sleep yourself though. ‘s fuckin’ late…”

“I will. I promise.”

_“ ‘kay…”_

Casey trusted Raph enough not to do weird shit while he was asleep. He could rest and not have to worry about anything.

But Raph wasn’t there when he woke up, which set off a couple alarm bells in Casey’s head. It was weird, waking up to an apartment empty except for him. He’d gotten used to having another individual around twenty-four-seven.

Casey made himself a quick breakfast, and ate it quietly in his empty feeling kitchen.

The demon showed up around lunch, casual as anything as he waltzed in through the balcony doors, tucking his wings back into nonexistence as he did. Casey didn’t ask where Raph had been, and Raph didn’t supply any answers.

They had chicken strips (Casey’s) and raw beef (Raph’s) for dinner, and didn’t discuss anything from the day before.

 

 

 

Casey was smoking on his balcony, because that was where you supposed to smoke dammnit, when he received yet another unwanted visitor.

Said unwanted visitor sped by his balcony, grabbing Casey as they went, and as Casey was swept up into the air yet _again_ \- he figured it might be time to quit smoking.

Thankfully, or maybe not so thankfully, the demon that’d grabbed him dropped Casey onto the roof of his apartment complex. Landing with sweeps of their huge- _seriously huge-_ wings, the lithe demon loomed over Casey.

Casey scrambled to his feet, squaring up against the newcomer. _Shit,_ was this a big one. Casey kept his hands steady anyways. “Okay motherfucker, I don’t know which one of Raph’s bros you are, but back the _hell_ _off!_ I’m not ‘enthralling’ him or whatever, so you can cool it with the trying to kill me thing!”

 _"̷O͡f ̵ço̶u͜rs͡e h̛e͟ pi̛c̵k͘ed͡ ̧a ̕moųt͏h҉y o̵ne͢,"͜_ The demon growled, flashing teeth as he stalked around Casey. The demon was a lot taller than Raph and Mikey had been, and leaner all around. He looked like he was built for pure speed, and reach too if the tail was as flexible as it seemed.

Casey was so busy examining the demon’s differences from his brothers, he missed the moment Raph’s unidentified brother attacked.

The demon was suddenly on top of Casey again, slamming him down against the concrete rooftop with a huge hand on his chest. The demon’s teeth were then right in front of Casey’s face, and he got a hot gust of demon breath blown right in his face.

Casey wheezed, feeling his ribs bruise and his lungs nearly collapse.

"͞Lęt̨'s j̵u͟st ̴get ͘t͜his ov͞e̕r ̡w͡i̶th͝,"̢ The demon said in a put upon tone, opening his jaws wide and bearing down on Casey’s neck.

 _“DON’T YOU FUCKING_ DARE _, DONNIE!”_

The demon- Donnie apparently- snapped his jaws shut right in front of Casey’s nose, and leaned his long neck away. The tips of his long horns caught the daylight as he looked evenly at his furious brother. "̡Ŗa̵p̴h͝.̡ ̛Long͞ ̨ti̛m̢e no see.͢I ͢w͡as ̛ju̴s̶t̷ ͠ta͡k̷i̕n̷g c͞are ͝of ̕thin̨gs."

Casey turned his head, and woozily caught sight of a more familiar demon he knew.

Wow Raph did look pissed.

“I _said-”_ Raph growled, snapping his wings out as he took a threatening step towards the larger demon. _“-don̡'t y̛ou͠ f̴ưc̷k̴ing ͟d̛a̶r͝e.͏"_

Donnie huffed, still not easing his hold on Casey’s steadily collapsing chest. "̡I'm not ̵go̢ing̷ t҉o͠ l̢e̡t y̢ou̴ do͝ ̵thi͟s̡ to yours͟elf͜ ągain,̸ ͠Rap͘h. It'ş ̡for ̛y͡o͞ur͏ o͟w͞n̢ go̶od͞.̢"

"Y͟ou d͟o͟n't͡ g̶et͏ ͘to make th͢at̸ dec͞i̴si͢o͘n̸ fo̴r͏ ͞me̶,̢"͘ Raph said in a hissing voice, steadily shifting closer and closer to full demon form. Scales covered his arms and crawled up his neck, same time as Raph’s eyes turned pure green. _"N͏o ̢o̸n͠e͞ ͘d̢oes.̨"_

"Oh ͡pl̶ea̕s͘e͡,̡ h͡e'͜s͟ ͘n͏ơt̢ ͢w͠o̷rt͏h҉ i̵t̛.̶ ͝H̕e̵'͡s b̴ar̨ely ̷wǫr͡th̕ ȩatiņg̵.̡ A̧nd ̴b͡es͘ide͞s,͠ ͢it͠'s not ̸like̢ ͟you ҉a̶lready m-̧" Donnie broke off, as something flickered in the air too fast for Casey’s blackening vision to catch. Even with the reptilian features and steady loss of oxygen in his brain, Casey read dawning horror in the demon’s expression.

"Y̷ơu ͏d̡idn̶'͟t,͘"͘ Donnie said, not asked, in a quiet voice.

“Just get off him, Dee. You know the rules,” Raph said in a low tone, his own voice returned to normal reverberation.

It took another moment, but Donnie’s stupidly huge hand lifted off Casey’s aching ribs, and he sucked in a much needed gush of air.

Casey saw spots in his vision, and tilted sideways as he tried to stand up. Someone’s arm caught him though, and Casey found himself being supported by Raph.

“Why’re all your brothers-” He coughed. “- _assholes,”_ Casey asked, throat raspy and feeling aches blooming all around his rib cage.

Donnie sneered at them both. "No͡ w̨o̵rd͢ fr̕om ̢y͏o̢u ̸fo̢r͝ ̸o͠v̕er a̷ ̢mo҉ntḩ, ̶a͡nd I̵ f͡i̵nd y̛ou ͢lik͏e҉ this͜.̧ A͠n͠d o̡nly͠ bec̕au͏s͞e̛ M̧ike̢y͜ ̵c͝a̷me̕ a̛nd͟ tol͠d͜ ̨me̸ ̵w̛h͡a̴t͏ y͢o̵u̡'̡d bee͡n up͘ t͜o."  
͠

“What I do in my spare time doesn’t concern you,” Raph said, stepping defensively in front of Casey.

 _"It d͝oes̢ ͏s̴o!"_ Donnie exclaimed, stomping one of his front limbs. "̡I'm ̷ąl̵l͘o͞wed to be çonc͢ern͢ed͠ w̷h͏e̷n͜ ̶my broth͡er͜ van̡is͠he̕s̶ ͡f̢or͞ w͟ee͏ks on̴ ̨e̷nd̨,͞ ̷and̵ ̷t͞u̶rn̡s̢ o͠ut͘ t͝o͟ h̶a͘v̶e̴ been h͠i͘ḑin͟g o̵u͝t wi͞t̨h̴ ͟a h̴uma̕n̸ ͘ţh͜is whol̕e ̢t҉im̨e!"̡

“He’s not hiding out,” Casey interjected. “He’s stuck here ‘cause I made a contract with him, and then forgot what for.”

Donnie shot him a look, luminous red eyes glaring harshly at Casey. "̛S͢h̸ut up. I͞ do̶n̶'t͠ want t͘o҉ he͟ar ̕ęxcu̵ses from̷ ͝s͜o͞m̧e̕ s͝t͏up̕i̷d ͜hu̡m̡an my̢ brother͞'s̷ ͜t͜a͡k͜en͘ to."

“Hey! You don’t get to talk to him like that, Donnie,” Raph said, jabbing a finger at his much taller brother. “I’m the only who does.”

"̨R̨a͢ph, quit͏ i͠t w͠įth͘ th͡i̴s̵ ͟nonsenşe,͝ ͜and̷ jus͢t ki̡l̶l̢ h͟i̛m ̕alre͠ady͞," Donnie said, lowering his head to be eye level with Raph. "̸T̶her͠e͠'̵s no̢ ͠poi͘n̵t įn p̢ur͞s͡ui̵ng ͞t͡his̢. ̶Y̧ou ̷kn͢ow̡ ͡ḩow̕ ̴i̸t'̨l̢l͜ en̸d͟.͘ ͜L͟et'͘s͏ j͝u͢st ̧go̸ hơme an͜d ͜f̵o͏r͠ge͏t th̛is ȩve͜r̨ ha͘p̨p͡ene͘d͡."̶

 _“No.”_ Raph growled, not giving an inch.

Donnie flashed his teeth, and he rose back to his full height. His wings snapped out again, and his tail whipped around behind him. "̡I ͠gųe̷s͜s I͞'ll̢ hav͠e̕ to ųse ̕forc̕e t͝h̸e͡n."̛

“Fucking _br͡iņg ҉i͘t̶,"̧_ Raph growled, starting to get bigger.

Casey was caught between _‘hell yes demon battle’_ and _‘oh fuck demon battle’_ \- when Donnie’s tail whipped across the roof the wrong way, and demolished the small garden in the corner.

Casey’s terror/excitement took a nosedive, and turned into pure horror.

The sound of clattering across the rooftop made everyone pause, and Casey turned slowly to look for the source.

April was standing in the open doorway from the rooftop entrance, her tools and watering can dropped on the ground beside her. She was staring at the disaster zone Donnie had made of her garden, clutching only her broom still.

Casey grabbed Raph’s shoulder, and started to tug him away from the danger zone. “Okay, we’re leaving now.”

_“What? No, Casey I have to-”_

“My garden,” April said, voice just loud enough to be heard across the roof. “You destroyed my garden.”

Donnie turned a condescending look on her, and scoffed. "͘Th͟i̸s͠ does̶n̕'͏t c̕o͞nc̛er̢n͞ yo͝u, m̸or̸t̶al͟.͞ ̷Leav̢e̸ w͠hi̕le ̴y͝ou st͡ill can."

“That was five months of work,” April said, pale and wide eyed. Her grip around her broom tightened to knuckle white. “Five months of work. Gone. I was writing my whole thesis on it.”

"I͘s s̡h̛e ̨d͟e͟af? ̛I told ͏her͏ ͠to le̡a͠v̸e̛ ͝a̕lre̕a̵d̢y̵-"

 _“FIVE. MONTHS .OF WORK!”_ April suddenly shouted, causing everyone to jump, even Donnie. She’d lost the shocked expression on her face, and turned it into pure fury. “AND THIRTY PAGES OF THESIS! _GONE. WORHTLESS.”_

 _“Okay I see your point_ ,” Raph whispered in an abruptly small voice, willingly backing away now. Casey nodded jerkily, and tugged Raph towards the edge of what was probably going to be the splash zone for blood.

April marched across the roof, broom swinging in her grip as she did, straight towards the visbily unsettled dragon-demon responsible for her garden’s violent death.

April glared up at Donnie, no hint of any fear from their height differences. “Shrink down. I know you can, because he can.” She pointed at Raph, who was trying to slip behind Casey. “So do it. Shrink down right. this. _second.”_

Donnie looked down at her, seeming confused by April’s commanding tone. "U̵h- ͡ex̶cu͟se me̢-?"

April swung her broom around in a vicious swing, and made contact with a harsh slap to Donnie’s side. He yelped, and tried to shy away, only for April to chase after him.

_“SHRINK DOWN!”_

_"̨You'r̶e̡ i͝nsa̢n͜e͘!"_

_“DO IT!”_

_"N͝O̶!"̴_

_“Do it or so HELP ME GOD-!”_

Casey watched his neighbor and best friend chase the demon sizes bigger than her, using only a broom and her terrifying temper to cow him. Raph had fully hidden himself behind Casey at that point, and Casey did his best to shield his other friend from April’s wrath.

Eventually, after April managed to land several consecutive hits to Donnie’s head and horns, he poofed into smoke, and rematerialized as a long haired human with tall horns. “Okay! I did it! _Leave_ _off_ you insane woman-”

April whacked him across the shins with her broom, literally sweeping Donnie’s long legs out from under him.

“Now _fix it,_ you over grown lizard!”

_“Fix what?! OW!”_

_“MY GARDEN!!”_ April screamed, pure fury in her voice. Her red hair flared up around her head, exactly like fire in the wind. She looked more demonic than the lanky man on the ground, currently trying to protect his tall horns and long tail from her broom.

Donnie then yelled something Casey couldn’t quite understand, and he stumbled for a moment- vision skewing violently. Raph steadied from behind thankfully, a warm hand placed in the center of Casey’s back.

April seemed utterly unaffected, continuing her assault on Donnie. The two of them were back to throwing insults at one another, and Donnie actually seemed a bit scared now. April continued whacking him with her broom anyways.

Casey- shaking off whatever Donnie had just done to his hearing- managed a wince on behalf of the fallen demon. “I actually feel sorry for the dude.”

“Me too,” Raph said, now fully hidden behind Casey. Though, he apparently didn’t feel sorry enough for his brother to actually intervene.

“Ooooooh _shit._ Dee’s really getting it now.” A cheery voice said from behind them. Casey glanced over his shoulder, and saw a mostly human Mikey clinging to the roof railing. He waved to Casey.

“Mikey! You told Donnie where I was?” Raph hissed accusingly at his brother.

“Nuh uh! Just that you were okay and junk, and sorta maybe chillin’ with a human.”

_“Mikey.”_

“Hey, at least I didn’t say anythin’ to Leo or Karai! Or Shini. Yikes.”

“Are you giving him our names?!” Donnie shrieked across the roof. “Guys! What have we talked about?!”

Mikey shrugged with a guiltless grin. “Hey, Raph did it first.”

“Names mean a thing?” Casey asked, struggling to keep track of the situation.

“Yes, yes they mean a thing!” Donnie exclaimed. “It would have been nice to know that you’ve both been handing them out like candy, and that Raph’s human’s neighbor was a _witch!”_

“April’s a witch?” Casey asked, even more confused. “April, you’re a witch and you never told me??”

“Don’t call me names!” April yelled, sweeping at Donnie again. “Just because you’re in trouble doesn’t mean you get to call me names!”

“April’s a witch? _What?”_ Casey questioned again, this time aiming it at the demon hiding behind his back.

“I thought you knew!” Raph said in a panicked voice.

“I thought so too!” Mikey added.

 _“I DIDN’T SO WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL_ ME?!” Donnie yelled over April’s broom whacking.

April, apparently unbothered by the side conversations that’d developed, hit Donnie again. _“Fix it!”_

_“I AM, you psychotic woman- ACK-!”_

“Yeesh, so no movie night tonight?”

“Not the priority here, idiot!”

“I don’t know what’s happening anymore but guys please don’t attract her attention over here she’ll- APRIL WAIT I HAD NO PART IN THIS-”

“ _STOP BRINGING DEMONS INTO OUR APARTMENT!”_

 

 

 

April being a witch made a horrendous amount of sense. The plants, the insane natural talent she had with chemicals and science in general, the bizarre way she’d been dealing so fearlessly with Casey’s accumulating demon population…

Casey thought it was amazing.

April didn’t think as much.

“That sounds fake,” She said, arms crossed to the demon she was staring down.

Donnie, who had managed to get off the ground again now that things were calmed down, stared back at her. “You are. I can sense latent power all around you.”

“Fake.” April said again. “I don’t believe you for a second. Witches don’t exist.”

“I’m a demon, I’m standing right in front of you. You’ve been _living with a demon_ , if only by association, for more than a month. How can you deny that witches exist?”

“You have to draw the line somewhere, and I’m drawing it here.”

“I don’t understand you humans. At all.”

She’d raised her broom threateningly in response, and Donnie had backed off with his hands raised.

April had eyed them all, eyed her restored garden, and then hefted her broom again. Everyone got the message.

Then she’d left, flipping her loose ponytail over her shoulder as she did.

Casey laughed aloud as she shut the door behind her. “Wow! I can’t believe none of us died! That’s a relief. Now someone explain my best friend being a witch. Seriously. What the fuck.”

Something then lashed out at his head, and Casey didn’t even have time to react before Raph yanked him down, and Donnie’s clawed hand was caught by Raph’s.

“Dammnit,” Donnie cursed shortly.

“I _just said-”_ Raph growled, yanking his much taller brother to his level. _“-don’t touch him.”_

“And _I_ just said-” Donnie growled back, knocking his long horns and forehead against Raph’s. “- _this is going to end in disaster.”_

“Oh my god, none of you have any chill,” Casey said, trying to wiggle out of Raph’s restraining grip.

Both of the quarreling demons let out rolling snarls, and Casey was practically tossed aside by Raph as they started fighting again.

The roof was covered in black smoke, and then there were two huge dragons wrestling right in front of Casey. He very closely avoided getting smacked in the face by Donnie’s whipping tail.

And- _shit-_ the cement was cracking, and Raph’s mouth was starting to glow and produce smoke, and Donnie’s was crackling with purple light, and everything smelt like ozone and rain and sort of like a forest fire-

-they both summoned magic circles, bright red against bright purple, and-

-a giant portal opened up underneath them, and they both fell into with surprised bellows.

The orange ringed portal closed up without a sound, and it was like there’d never been demons around to begin with.

Casey looked over at Mikey, who was still holding his hands out with his legs apart.

Mikey looked at Casey, and gave a winning smile. Complete with deadly canines.

“What the fuck.” Casey said, not asked.

“They needed time to cool off,” Mikey explained.

“So you sent them to _hell?”_

“Maaaaybe?? I don’t know. It just sort of- poofed them off? Somewhere?? They’re gonna come back don’t worry. Donnie’s good at finding his way home, no matter where I poof him.”

“Oh my god.”

“Soooo…” Mikey gave him a cat-ish grin, coy and sly. “Can we go eat all the raw meat and watch a movie till they get back? I mean, they’ll probably get a snack along the ways anyhoo, so like, they ain’t gonna miss that meat, right? Ha ha.”

Mikey’s tail was lashing around excitedly, the curly crest on it bouncing around as it did. He looked way too proud of himself and way too okay with the fact that Raph and Donnie were probably going to come back pissed.

Casey thought for a moment.

Hm. If worse came to worst, he could just call his friendly neighborhood witch to subdue everyone. And speaking of-

“We can if you tell me about April being a witch.”

“Oh totally, and I get dibs on the steak too!”

“Uh. Wasn’t gonna eat it, so sure.”

Technically Raph had been planning to, but keeping Mikey from eating things that weren't exactly dead yet was more important.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> demon donnie is described in detail next chapter. i promise. i wouldn't leave you all hanging like that.
> 
> also april is about 100% done with demons interrupting her life. she's got a broom and a take-no-shit attitude and means Business.  
> don't touch the garden folks. just don't.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think we're halfway done now. god.

Casey slammed his bag down on the table, and slumped into his seat. His fellow arts student, directly across from him, raised her eyebrow.

“What crawled up your sorry ass and died?” She asked, eyes skimming over the dark circles under his eyes, and the scratches on his arms. “Or better question, what _attacked_ your sorry ass?”

“I went from having one demon, to two demons, to _three_ demons, all of them pissy little assholes-” Casey counted on his fingers quickly. “-in under, like, a week or two or some shit. I don’t even know anymore. Jesus.”

“You got another cat? Cat _s_? Two new cats, plus the first one. Yikes.”

“Yeah. Sure. My cats.”

“Three cats is a lot of cats, Casey. Even for a currently single art student.”

Casey dug out his energy drink, cracked it open, and took a sip before answering. “You’re telling me.”

“So what happened to you last night? The cuts and shit. Your cats turn on you or something?”

“Or something.” Casey grumbled, nursing his drink. Caffeine. Sweet, sweet caffeine. “Two of them got chased off by the other one, and then showed up again in the middle of the night- not even after four AM, god- and proceeded to _continue_ their piss fit in the middle of my living room, trash my kitchen and couch in the process, and bring my neighbor’s wrath down on all of us. _Again.”_

Two extraordinarily angry demons dropping out of thin air- right onto another demon, who’d finally gone to sleep maybe an hour ago- in the middle of the night hadn’t been fun. Casey had woken up to the loudest racket he’d heard in… probably a few hours. Maybe.

There’d been fire involved. There’d been purple electricity involved. And just for shits and giggles- knowing Mikey- there’d been balls of pure energy launched into the fray that left chunks missing from whatever they hit.

And then April had kicked down his door, broom and water gun in hand, and everything went straight to metaphorical hell.

Not literal hell, thank god, but they certainly were heading that direction for a while there.

Donnie had tried to kill Casey at least twice more. Maybe Mikey too. That being- Mikey maybe trying to kill Casey, and Donnie maybe trying to kill Mikey. At the same time. Casey hadn’t been able to tell for sure if Mikey actually tried to kill him or not, but he had a very deep suspicion of that one stray plasma shot.

April was the only reason anyone actually went to bed afterwards. Casey now had three new words to live by: Witches Kill Bitches. _Yikes._

Casey took another long sip of his drink.

He’d gotten electrocuted, beaten, and just a tiny bit burned. Fun night. Maybe one of the wildest he’d had in a while.

Whoop-dee-fucking-doo.

“Why don’t you just give two of the cats back? The first one sounded chill enough without the others.”

Casey laughed dryly. “Oh I wish. I really fucking wish.”

If April couldn’t chase the other two off- and damn if she hadn’t tried- then no one could.

Casey’s classmate shook her head sympathetically and despairingly. “Casey, I do not envy your life, nor do I understand it.”

Casey slumped over the table, balancing his already empty drink in his hand. “You and me both. God.”

 

 

 

_april_

_april_

_april_

_APRIK ANSWER ME_

_fuck april*_

_CAPS LOCK STANDS THO_

_Casey for god’s sake_

_What is it?_

_It’s not even three AM yet why are you texting me_

_I JUST REALIZED RAPH MIGHT ACTUALLY KILL ME_

_…how is this news?_

_He threatened your life at least five times the first day you met._

_YEAH BUT I JUST REMEMBERED THE SOUL THING_

_THE SOUL THIGN APRIJG_

_THESOULTHING_

_You’re worse than I am at three in the morning._

_What ‘soul thing’, Casey._

_THE SOUL THING ABOUT HOW IM SIGNING MY SOUL OVER TO HIM FOR WHATEVR STUPID CNTRACT I MADE AND HOW ILL DIE ASSOON AS HE TAKEE IT_

_Typos galore, and_

_Yikes._

_THIS IS WHY IM SITTING IN MY EMPTY BATH TUB AT THREE AM IM GOING TO FUCING DIE_

_APRIL HELP IM FUCKED_

_I FUCKED MYSELF OVER RLLY BADLY THISTME_

_H E LP_

_And somehow, I’m betting you still find him ‘hot’._

_YES THIS IS PART OF THE ‘FUCKED MYSELY OVER’ BIT_

_Oh Casey._

_Casey, Casey, Casey._

_How did you make it to adulthood? Really._

_SHUTUP THATS NOT HELPGUL RIGHT NOW_

_APIL IM SCREAMING_

_SCREMAING AT THREE AM IN MY FUCKIG BATHTUB_

_FUCK MY FICKING LIFE OH MY GOD_

_Raph’s kept you alive this long, he probably won’t kill you._

_I’m assuming, at least._

_You’re very hard to keep alive, Casey. If he just went and killed you after all this, it’d be a waste of time and effort._

_Of course I could be wrong and your demon call boy could just be insane._

_SCREAMING APRL_

_SCRMMING IN A BATHTUB_

_NOT_

_HELPING_

_ME_

_At this point, you may be beyond help._

_Even mine._

_AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH_

_ohshit i woke up don_

_fuc_

_fuckripme mikes awaketoo fukcv_

_apl make sure my funeral is a nece one I deserved better ing likfe than this_

_fkjgb;eiugb;bkbgfjnfgt_

_Casey?_

_Casey?_

_Good grief. None of us are ever getting a full night’s rest ever again._

_I’m getting my gun, Casey. I’ll be there right away._

_I just need pants first._

 

 

 

In the end, Casey didn’t ask Raph about the soul thing. He was, in a word that he was never ever going to repeat to anyone, too chicken-shit to do it.

If Raph’s reply was _“Yup. When we complete the contract and I take your soul- you die. Tough.”_ then Casey wasn’t sure how he’d handle that. Better to just avoid the whole awkward “will you kill me or not” conversation for now.

And besides, he didn’t really want to bring up the whole ‘ending the contract’ thing. If he did, that meant they’d have to start working on it again, and Casey… didn’t really want it to end. Not just yet.

He focused instead on surviving the transition into having Donnie as a member of their crowded household, and not dying in the process.

The lanky demon, dark as Raph but with way more hair and way less muscle, was a complete know-it-all. He took every chance he had to lord over Casey the fact that he was just some ‘ignorant human’, Donnie’s words not Casey’s.

He also took every chance he had to hint very unsubtly that Casey didn’t deserve Raph’s presence in his home, and Casey tried not to read deeper into that beyond speciest tendencies Donnie seemed to have.

Mostly though, as long as Donnie was preoccupied by the thick textbooks he kept getting from somewhere, or by Mikey or Raph, he didn’t give Casey much attention at all. Just lounged around Casey’s apartment building, and made snide comments at everyone.

It wasn’t intolerable, seeing as Donnie had gotten over his ‘murder the human’ phase pretty quick. Still annoying for Casey though, trying to make it through his own apartment, only to have a long tail trip him up, or a large wing snap out in his face. Casey retaliated with holy water mixed into Donnie’s food portions, smacking the demon’s protruding appendages with his hockey sticks, and sicking Raph on his brother when all else failed.

Or April, but watching the two of them stare one another down, broom and magic in hand, was a bit hard on Casey’s heart, so. Not so much that option. He liked his apartment intact, thank you.

So basically, Casey snapped at Donnie and Donnie snapped at him and they both threatened violence until someone pushed them apart. No blood was shed- no more than what was usual lately- and they somehow found a balance of mutual dislike.

In the end, neither of them liked one another, but Donnie had been very clear he wasn’t leaving until Raph did, and Casey had been very clear that he either shove it or shove off.

But no one was dead yet, so. Kudos to both of them.

Now Casey was dealing with a new problem, created another time over with the newest addition to his already too cramped home: feeding them all.

“Why do you guys have to eat so fucking much?” Casey grumbled, shoving the heavy grocery cart along. “God. This is more than I eat in a month.”

“I need power, because you’re a moron who can’t even remember why he summoned me,” Raph answered as he tossed yet another package of food into the cart. “And because Don and Mike are little shits who like to be as annoying as they can.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured that out,” Casey said sulkily. Accommodating three demons at once was a major hassle, especially when one was liable to set the neighborhood on fire for a laugh, and the other was still in the middle of a silent pissing contest with his neighboring witch. Oh the trials of adulthood. Casey felt like he deserved a vacation.

If it wasn’t for the insane load of cash Donnie had magicked up, Casey knew he would’ve hit broke by now. From where the cash had come from, Donnie wouldn’t say, but looking at all the zeroes in his account, Casey hadn’t felt like questioning its origins.

He had however, questioned why he wasn’t paying some price for the generous donation. Donnie had replied vaguely that his due was being covered by Raph, and then promptly fucked off into the open air; lifting off the ground with sweeps of his wings, and leaving Casey outside the supermarket without a real explanation.

Fucking demons.

Upside of things, Casey had gotten to send his dad and sister a good chunk of cash, and he didn’t have to worry about student loans anymore. Downside, his dad had texted to check if Casey had switched career choices to become a hitman and his sister had texted with the question if escort prices had suddenly gone up.

No faith from his family, honestly. Couldn’t he make money in a legal manner? Casey could totally make that much money if he tried.

Raph came back to the cart with an armful of hotdog and hamburger buns, and dumped them into the already very full cart.

“For the meat,” Raph explained shortly to Casey’s questioning look.

“What meat?” Casey asked.

Before Raph could answer, a shopping cart went racing past their aisle, and Casey caught a glimpse of Mikey riding it and what looked like majority of the raw meat section stacked in with him.

“That meat,” Raph said, pointing after his brother, and Casey could hear semi-maniacal laughter coming from that direction.

Casey sighed, and started to push their cart towards the direction Mikey had gone. “Guess we’re having a barbeque tonight, since no way this is all fitting in the fridge.”

Something crashed on the other side of the store, and Casey started pushing their cart a bit faster.

After they’d wrangled Mikey, magicked away the witnesses memory of the demon’s full-tilt crash into the flower stand, repaired said flower stand, and Donnie had at some point reappeared mysteriously out of thin air to snark at everyone- Casey managed to herd the three demons towards the check out with their purchases.

Again, he got his usual cashier, and the man gave Casey another look for his newest addition to their gaggle. Donnie admittedly stood out even more than Mikey did, in looks at least, being well over six feet. Mikey still had him beat in aura of crazy though.

In comparison to his siblings, one twitching constantly and the other giving everything a calculative and condescending look, Raph was practically normal seeming. Slightly below average height, and just a tinge of surliness to him.

And then Raph hiccupped a smoke ring, and the image was ruined.

Casey paid for their food, and didn’t give the cashier any explanation for his friend group.

 

 

 

Since Casey didn’t technically have a barbeque for barbeque, and neither did April, the task of cooking the meat got passed over to the walking fire pit. They also ended up relocating to the roof, after Raph set Casey’s ceiling on fire.

A pleasantly warm evening wind blew over the roof top, wafting the smell of cooking meat towards Casey. He glanced up to look at the other roof top occupants.

April had brought one of her folding chairs up with her, and was reading a book near her garden. The position was only semi-protective seeming, and everyone was giving her garden a wide birth.

Mikey was busy playing with a cat that’d appeared out of nowhere, despite Casey’s apartment building being pet free. Casey had started to question the cat earlier, but then he’d seen it had deep, bottomless black eyes, and had figured he’d leave well enough alone. At least it seemed more interested in rolling around on the roof with Mikey, rather than causing extra property damage like all the other demons in Casey’s life.

Donnie was the opposite of Mikey, completely lax and silent. He was laid out on a blanket that he’d probably stolen from Casey’s linen closet. Wings out and tail twitching, Donnie seemed intent on catching the last rays of the sun before it went down, slowly paging through yet another thick book he’d pulled out of nowhere. Eventually, he and April were probably going to bond like the condescending smarty-pants assholes they both were, and then everyone else was probably going to die.

Raph was rotating a couple dozen meat products in the air, flames licking around them in helix spirals. It smelt great, and Raph’s intent focus on keeping the food from burning gave Casey the chance to side-eye him a bit.

Admittedly, Casey might’ve been side-eyeing all the demon brothers, because _shit-_ it wasn’t like they weren’t all relatively to very good looking. Even Mikey wasn’t exactly hard on the eyes, as unlikely as it was for Casey to ever risk going for him. Because he liked his extremities intact and not bitten off, and he totally still caught Mikey eyeing him like food sometimes.

Point being- Casey had a lot of very attractive men staying in his apartment at the moment, and wow was he very gay.

He tried to remind himself that A) two out of the three would probably kill him if they got the chance, and B) his focus was on Raph, as impossible to obtain as the demon likely was, and that he shouldn’t get distracted by the demon’s siblings.

And besides, he liked Raph the best anyways. Better personality, even if no one else would probably think that except for Casey.

Casey refocused on the sketchpad in his hands, and did his best to reroute his wandering thoughts. No gay thoughts for him, no siree. Not while he was in the presence of others.

He was in the middle of yet another sketch of a full demon form- this time Donnie’s, because the long swooping tail and wings were fun to draw. He was still trying to get the proper look down, since at the moment it looked too much like a regular dragon, and not a demon.

“Hey Raph,” Casey said, glancing up from his drawing again. “Quick question. How come you all look like dragons? Not very demony.”

“Because that’s what fits this era best,” Raph replied. Which made no sense.

“Elaborate a little more than that?”

Raph gave him a look, but answered anyways. “Our manifesting shapes change depending on the plain of existence we enter, and also with whatever the sentient population will fear best. In this era, it’s apparently big scaly lizards with wings. I’m not complaining, since it’s better than some we’ve gotten.”

“Dragons are cool shit though,” Casey said, twirling his pencil as he watched the meat in the air do the same. “They’re everywhere in media. Not exactly the boogieman.”

“Worked well enough on you,” Raph said, giving Casey a teasing smirk.

Casey scoffed. “Man, whatever. It was morning and I was hung over. ‘scuse me for not being able to keep my cool with a fucking demon in my house.”

Raph gave a warm laugh, and Casey found himself smiling just a tad wider than he usually would.

“Okay, I got another question then,” Casey said, leaning forwards on his crossed legs. “Which one of your ‘manifestations’ has been your favorite? You gotta have one, seein’ as you’re old as shit now.”

“Shut up, I’m young by demon standards,” Raph said, rolling his eyes. “And if you really wanna know, one of them was one I had just a couple hundred years ago. Not on this plain of existence, but it wasn’t too far off in similarity.”

“Yeah? What was it?”

“A turtle,” Raph said, and Casey couldn’t help the startled laugh that came out of him.

“What? No way. How is a turtle scary?” Casey asked in disbelieving amusement. “They’re like- tiny and cute and shit. Slow too.”

Raph shrugged, twirling his wrist so all the meat in the air would too. “I’d show you, but since I’m busy… _hey Donnie!”_

 _“What?”_ Donnie said in a tone that Casey recognized easily from his own sibling.

“Get over here; I want you to show Casey what the turtle manifestation looked like.”

“Ugh, no way. I’m busy right now,” Donnie said, giving them both a grumpy look.

Raph twirled a couple hotdogs threateningly towards Donnie. “Do it, or I use your horns as extra roasting sticks.”

“Raph- come on, don’t be a dick.”

“Don’t be a lazy shit.”

“Raph.”

“Donnie.”

“ _Fine,”_ Donnie grumbled, getting up if only because the hotdogs had been getting dangerously close to his seven inch horns.

Casey stood up too, officially and extremely intrigued about what would happen next. He wasn’t alone in that either, since April had set down her book to watch the rest of them, and Mikey and his weird cat had gone still.

Donnie steepled his fingers together, and closed his eyes. For a moment, nothing happened, but then a rune circle appeared under his feet. From the bright purple magic, a wall of water swirled up and around Donnie. The height of the airborne whirlpool grew, and Casey could see that something inside was growing with it.

Then, the water’s surface broke at the bottom, and receded upwards to reveal-

-a giant bipedal turtle.

Casey let out a shocked laugh, and couldn’t believe his eyes.

Donnie had gone from six something to twelve something, now with the addition of a shell, plastron, and dark green scales. A long staff was strapped to his back, held in place by royal purple sashes wrapped around Donnie’s chest and shell. The water receded to pool in the air above Donnie’s head, and it condescend into a sort of reflective disk. Casey mentally compared it to the halos he’d seen on angels in church murals.

Donnie reopened his eyes, which had remained luminous red through the transformation, and looked down Casey with a displeased look. Somehow, even with a beak like mouth, he managed to sneer at Casey.

 _“Ta da,”_ Donnie said, giving a half-assed jazz hands. _“One turtle reporting for duty. Can I change back now? This itches.”_

Casey noted that instead of discordant and harsh, the demon’s words were actually close to lyrical sounding in this form.

“Why’s it itch?” Casey asked, secretly hoping to prolong things so he could memorize the finer details of this form. Shit, this would look amazing in watercolors.

 _“Because it’s not the right one for this world,”_ Donnie said in a deeply annoyed tone. _“It’s wrong and it feels a bit like wearing a winter coat in summer, I guess.”_

“Oh. Neat.” Casey replied vaguely, still busy memorizing.

“You know,” April spoke up. “I wonder if anyone can see the shit you guys do on this roof. I don’t know about you, but it would be weird to see a giant bipedal turtle on my roof if I didn’t know better.”

 _“I have spells that erase memories of events like this,”_ Donnie replied smoothly, with only a hint of _‘duh’_ in his tone.

“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure Raph doesn’t, because yesterday a guy at the coffee shop down the way said he saw a really weird ass bird in the sky. About the size of a mini-van? Pointy horns too.”

Everyone looked at Raph, who looked a little embarrassed.

 _“Raph.”_ Donnie said in a disapproving tone.

“Sometimes I forget to turn them on, okay?” Raph defended.

_“I can’t believe you.”_

“Shut up! Do you want dinner or not?”

“I do! We do!” Mikey interjected, waving his cat around in the air like something out of the Lion King. The cat made a long warbling meow, and Casey’s felt goosebumps prickle on his skin.

While the others were distracted, he took the chance to pick up his sketchbook and start a rapid gesture drawing of Donnie. Maybe later, he could get Raph do switch forms too, and draw him as well.

So while Casey hurriedly drew, Donnie got pelted by hotdogs as he kept berating Raph for his carelessness, said hotdogs quickly snatched out of the air by Mikey and his cat and devoured, and April calmly watched the whole show from over the top of her novel.

All in all, a pretty normal evening for them lately.

 

 

 

Casey was about done with being assaulted by demons.

Example: being stalked on the way home from campus, and feeling increasingly evil vibes being aimed at the back of his head.

The first afternoon in _days_ that didn`t involve one or more of his mostly unwanted house guests tagging along- and _this_ happens.

Casey risked a glance over his shoulder.

The man, concealed by his loose black hoodie and blue ball cap, was still following him. He seemed normal enough from first glance, no tail or horns or anything in plain sight, but Casey also knew better by now than to be fooled by that.

Casey thought he saw a flash of icy blue eyes from under the hat brim, and he whipped his eyes back to the sidewalk in front of him.

He was at least a half hour’s walk from his apartment still, and the bus wouldn’t save him now.

Why didn’t demons have cell phones? Raph could probably destroy a small city on his lonesome, but he didn’t have a god damn _cell phone._

Casey tugged out his phone, trying to casually speed up his walking as he did.

_april help im being stalked by one of raphs crazy relatives pls send help rn_

A cold shudder went through Casey, and he knew the guy following him had gotten closer again. On and off as he’d been walking the last five minutes, every time Casey looked back, the guy got closer.

Fear sweat prickled the back of his neck, and Casey swallowed.

He didn’t have a handy bat or hockey stick, and he didn’t have a demon protecting him either. Unless someone got here quickly, he was probably going to end up demon food.

Pretty sick way to go, all things considering, but he’d rather not die on this particular day.

“Respond,” Casey muttered. “Please, god- _April, respond already.”_

Casey felt a rush of air go past him, and it felt _way too fucking cold_ for this time of year. Something not actually there tried to climb up his spine, and Casey shuddered all the way down to his soul.

He typed an all caps message of _‘HOLY FUCK APRIL IM SERIOUS PLS RESPOND RN’_ and started walking even faster.

Wow this was not how he wanted to die right now. Maybe later, maybe a few years down the line, _but not right fucking now._

His phone chimed, and Casey gasped out a choked laugh.

 

_Raph’s on his way. ETA should be less than a minute._

_Why can’t our lives be normal anymore._

_BESNIDELATERIMGONNADIE_

 

_What else is new?_

 

Casey would have replied again, but a violent shudder went through him as an ice cold feeling gripped his body. He didn’t want to turn around, really, he didn’t- but he did anyways.

Raph’s brother- probably the elusive Leo- stared Casey dead in the eye, from just a block away. Navy blue eyes froze Casey to his core, and he felt like he was suddenly breathing sub-zero air.

Leo opened his mouth, and something reverberated through the air. The other humans walking down the street around Casey stumbled, and Casey’s knees came close to buckling. He only barely recovered enough to keep standing.

Welp. Time to start running.

Casey bolted fast as he could, and he cursed Raph for bringing this kind of insanity into his life.

Casey might’ve been slacking on his exercise lately- too much demonic influence in his life to even remember- but he could still sprint like the wind. He’d never quite grown out of the skinniness from his teenage years, and he counted his blessing that he hadn’t packed on muscle like he’d hoped he would. Wind whistled past him as he ran, and Casey felt caught between sheer terror and utter excitement.

Nothing like running for your life to kick the old adrenaline into gear.

Casey risked a partial glance over his shoulder, and regretted it as caught sight of Leo still hot on his tail. The demon wasn’t even running, he was just walking- and yet, he was still only a block behind Casey.

Fucking demons. Fucking demon magic. Fucking life.

Casey pushed himself to run faster, and prayed he wouldn’t land on his knee wrong and wipe out. He’d be screwed if he did.

He yelped as the sidewalk ahead of him was suddenly coated in ice, and he had to stop short before he hit it. Casey turned to the left, and darted across the street. A lone car honked at him as he ran, and for a second, the accident that’d fucked his knee over flashed across his eyes.

Then it was gone, and his feet hit the sidewalk across the street. He kept running, lungs heaving as he attempted to give Raph time to show the fuck up and save his ass.

Casey had to change directions again though, as the sidewalk _again_ was covered in ice. This time with jagged points aimed directly at Casey, ones that would impale him clear through if he fell on them.

Casey dodged away from them, and found himself in an alley. An alley with a dead end.

Shit. Clichés. He hated clichés.

Casey whirled to run back out, and found Leo blocking the way. Casey retreated further into the alley, and raised his hands to the calmly advancing demon.

“Okay, so, I dunno if the other two have told you this yet-” Casey swallowed, trying for bravado instead of nervousness. “-but I’m officially off the menu. Just ask Raph, he’ll vouch for me.”

Leo didn’t pay his words any mind, and the air around Casey suddenly went freezing. With a wave of his hand, encircled by blue runes, Leo sent the alley into the deep freeze.

Casey’s airways went dry from the sudden drop, and he glanced around in panic. The walls of the alley were quickly being covered in ice, sharp points growing from both sides like jagged teeth. Casey’s shoes skidded momentarily, as the ice spread across the ground as well.

“I’m serious, Leo,” Casey said, trying to get the demon’s attention by saying his name. “Raph and me are cool. So if you could, like, be a little less literal with the chill, he’ll be here any second now to explain the shit that’s been going on-”

Leo remained quiet, but shut Casey up with a harsh gust of ice wind. Casey inhaled sharply, and coughed at the sheer coldness. It spread through him, and he coughed harder as he struggled to breathe.

Then-

He realized he couldn’t move his feet.

Casey made the mistake of glancing down, and saw that his feet were encased in ice. Ice that was steadily climbing up his legs, and locking him in place.

The dark ice moved quickly, spreading up Casey’s body almost faster than he could register what was happening. It covered his legs, and then spread to his torso, and Casey couldn’t breathe, ice filling his lungs and chilling him through.

His eyes clouded with tears, as ice wind kept whipping around him. He was half blind, more than half frozen, and came to the conclusion he probably was going to die.

He managed one last cough, before the ice spread to his neck, and froze his lungs in place. He felt the ice spreading down his arms, and Casey couldn’t think it was so cold. Everything was burning, the freezing prison wrapping itself around every piece of his body.

Casey felt the ice creep onto his face, his vision blurring as it did, and he couldn’t fight it at all.

The ice covered his nose, and spread over his eyes and head, and then Casey was trapped in the dark. His eyes frozen shut and his lungs frozen in place.

Then-

Something flared, hot and burning, on his chest-

And the ice shattered around his face, around his chest, and Casey could breathe again.

He blinked rapidly, sucking in as much air as he could, and tried to clear the clinging ice crystals to his face. Everything hurt, his hands and feet and legs and every bit of skin on him- they felt like they were still encased in ice. Cold enough that the warmer air was making them burn.

Casey saw something red flicker on his chest again, but he couldn’t see well enough to recognize what it was.

He spotted Leo, who’s calm, blank expression had broken. He was staring at Casey in shock, visibly confused as to why Casey wasn’t a human popsicle.

Then Raph fell out of the sky, right onto Leo, and threw his brother across the alleyway. Casey managed a short laugh at the sudden shift in mood, Leo looking utterly confused and offended by the turn of events, and Raph looking like he wanted to set everything and Leo on fire, the both of them yelling at one another in increasing volumes-

And then Casey’s vision went black, and he felt himself hit the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoop cliffhanger lmao


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *tips my hat* guess who ain't dead!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> watched how to train your dragon recently again, and like.............. Dragons, man. fucking dragons.
> 
> so back on my bullshit i be.

The first thing that Casey registered as he woke up was that everything hurt, and he felt too hot to even be close to comfortable. The second thing was that there was someone else in his bedroom.

Casey slowly turned his head, and found Raph staring at him intently. He cracked a smile, and said, “We really need to stop meeting like this.”

“You almost died,” Raph said bluntly. “Again.”

“I feel like I got hit by a truck.”

“Considering the level of ice magic that my brother used on you, I’m not surprised.”

Casey tried to sit up, and his vision swam. So he opted to flop back down again and not throw up. “Fucking- could use some insta healing right now, my head kind of feels like it got used for kickball.”

Raph snorted, and reached up to brush Casey’s bangs out of his face. Casey felt then how sticky his forehead was, and groaned. Raph’s hot hand on his skin did the opposite of helping him feel better, at least until it was lifted away and Casey felt a little less super-heated.

“Can’t do anything for you yet, sorry,” Raph said, leaning on his elbows next to Casey’s midriff. “Any more of my magic and you’ll burn up. Literally.”

Casey flopped a hand on his chest, where the sunspot of overwhelming heat had been and still lingered. He’d only seen a flash of it, but he knew it’d been… definitely magic related. “Yeah… okay. That’s nice to know. Does this mean you’ll explain what the fuck that lightshow was?”

“…I… _guess.”_

Casey rolled his eyes at Raph’s reluctance. Forcing his body to turn on its side, he faced towards Raph and fixed as stern a look as he could. “Well?” he prompted. “I’m really grateful that I’m not dead, don’t get me wrong, but knowing _why_ I’m not would be nice. I’d rather not feel like this again any time soon, thanks.”

Raph looked anywhere but him for a long pause. The longer the pause drew out, the more his tail twitched on the floor; until it was thumping against the carpet, and Raph couldn’t seem to take it anymore.

“Okay, _fine,_ look, I… put my mark on you,” Raph said, almost mumbling by the final words.

“Cool,” Casey said easily. “The fuck’s that?”

Raph’s ears looked a little red. “It’s… a protection spell, of sorts. But more personal. Anyone who tries to attack you with magic… their spells will be fended off by this.” He lifted one hand and reached out to tap a single clawed finger against Casey’s chest.

The red sigils from before flared to life, and Casey let out a small gasp at the sear of heat they brought. This time he was conscious enough to take them in, and admittedly the heat wasn’t that bad. “Anyone who bothers to check will know you’re my contract,” Raph said, sending the spell work spinning with a flick of his finger. “ _And_ that you’re under my protection. It should be enough of a deterrent to any demons lower in rank than me and my brothers.”

Raph retracted his hand, and Casey lifted his own in an attempt to touch the spell rotating just under his collarbone. It faded into wisps though, and all that he felt was oddly warm skin under his black t-shirt.

“…wow,” Casey said, touching around the spot the sigil had been. “That’s honestly really sick, dude. Thanks.”

Raph grumbled a little, hunching his shoulders. “Just don’t go getting into any more trouble like that, alright? Human bodies aren’t made to withstand high quantities of magic, even if it’s to protect them.”

“Hey, it’s _your_ brother who attacked me,” Casey said, still literally sore over that. “I didn’t go and get into any trouble, it came to _me.”_

“Same thing,” Raph huffed. Then his terse expression softened a little, and he said in a quieter voice, “…sorry about my asshole siblings. I should’ve called and told them in the first place what was going on, not…”

“Totally hid in shame?” Casey supplied. Raph smacked his stomach and Casey winced all over.

“Shut up, I’m trying to apologize. Do you know how often a demon apologizes to a human? Almost never. Be grateful, you fleshy waste of space.”

“I thought this was supposed to be an apology,” Casey groaned, curling on his stomach. It didn’t actually hurt, but he was taking precautions to defend against future attack.

“I’m _working_ on it,” Raph snapped, tail thawpping on the floor loudly.

“And what a good job you’re doing, real stand up work right here.”

“ _Gods,_ I don’t know why I put so much effort into keeping you alive.”

“I dunno why either,” Casey said, and was a little surprised when there was no rapid fire comeback to that. Raph just coughed and stood up.

“Come on, April’s got my brothers corralled on the roof,” Raph said, yanking the blanket off Casey. “Let’s get up there before anyone else does something stupid.”

“Or pisses April off,” Casey said, aching all over as he let Raph pull him up from bed.

“That’s what I meant by doing something stupid.”

Casey’s legs immediately made it clear they wanted to remain horizontal, not vertical, and he ended up leaning heavily on Raph’s broad shoulders. Casey tried not to enjoy it too much, letting the demon easily help him along as they made their way to his balcony. A short flight up, and Raph gently placed Casey on the roof as his wings folded back into non-existence.

April was standing imperiously in front of the other three demons, broom in hand and a terrifying glint in her eye. Donnie and Mikey looked annoyed that they were being subjected to the same treatment as the demon next to them, who Casey assumed was Leo.

Raph’s brother had long swooping horns along the sides of his head, caught between the tight curl of Mikey’s and the near straightness of Donnie’s. Leo’s tail, which was curled around his kneeling legs, had short but silky looking hair along its dark scaly length. His blue eyes darker than Mikey’s stood out against his brown skin, which flickered over to Casey and Raph as they set down.

Compared to the intimidating enemy he’d presented himself as earlier, now that he lacked his cap and hoodie and general aura of death by personal ice age, Leo looked a lot less scary with his short black hair and chastised expression.

“Oh,” Leo said, addressing Casey. “You’re awake. Good, I wanted to talk with you. Seems there’s been a bit of a… misunderstanding.”

“Love how me almost dying is just a misunderstanding,” Casey said dryly.

“Did I _say_ you could talk?” April growled fiercely, and Leo shut his mouth again. Casey’s mouth twitched into a smile, because while Mikey’s cliffnote’s version of why witches were so scary and powerful had been essentially useless, he wasn’t going to question the definite fear April could inspire in the brothers.

“We didn’t _do_ _anything,”_ Mikey whined, shifting around restlessly. “Can’t we go now? Casey’s _fine,_ and I wasn’t even the one who attacked him this time!”

Donnie looked as unimpressed with the situation as possible. “For the first time in probably two centuries, I agree with Mikey’s opinion.”

“ _Hey!_ Rude. _”_

“I didn’t say _you two_ could talk _either.”_

Casey steepled his hands together in front of his face, humming to himself as April menaced three incredibly powerful demons with a broom. He honestly didn’t know how they were all still standing after weeks of this kind of nonsense.

“Please stop them before someone gets maimed,” Casey said to Raph, who sighed like it was the most unreasonable thing to ask of someone.

“Stand down, April, please. I only got the three of them for brothers,” Raph said, approaching April and her broomish aura of doom. He subtly kept out of reach as he did. “Leo can apologize to Casey, Casey can sleep off the whole thing, and everything’ll be good, alright?”

April gave him a contemptuous look. “You _better_ have just the three of them for brothers,” she said in warning, but stepped away from her guard spot. Mikey immediately sprouted wings and flew off to perch on the railing, while Donnie stood gracefully and flicked his long hair over his shoulder.

Leo stood last, dusting off his knees, and promptly had the collar of his light blue t-shirt grabbed by Raph. Casey started to walk towards the group with a bit of urgency, a little worried about the apartment complex’s rooftop if two demons decided to throw down _again_ on it.

“You keep out of my business, or this gets ugly,” Raph growled, just as Casey got within earshot of the half whispered conversation.

“How was _I_ supposed to know you marked him?” Leo accused, flashing sharp teeth at his brother. “Literally _none_ of you called me with an update about the situation! You all just _vanished_.”

“It’s damn obvious and you know it, if you’d just _check_ before you go off trying to impose your plans over _everyone else-”_

“Whoa, hey,” Casey interrupted, seeing smoke and flashes of fire and ice start coming off the demons.   
“Human rooftop, not some- demon realm, or whatever. No fighting here, okay? Have your pissing contest somewhere.”

Both demons gave him an annoyed look, and Casey distinctly got the impression they were saying _Stupid humans should stay out of it,_ even though tearing up a roof in broad daylight was literally the dumbest solution to this (even if it would be the coolest thing _ever_ , otherwise speaking).

April whapped her broom against her palm. Leo and Raph scowled, but separated. Casey sighed in relief; his body ached too much to do a full scale demon battle again so soon.

Then, and maybe only because Raph shoved him towards Casey with a growl, Leo approached him and gave something akin to a bow.

“I’m… sorry for almost killing you. I was just worried about the safety of my brothers, in case you’d enslaved them somehow,” Leo said, and if it weren’t for the words and headgear, it would have been like any normal person apologizing for something minor. “If I’d known you were not only contracted to my brother, but marked as protected as well, I wouldn’t have tried to take your life.”

Casey decided to ignore the subtext that if he _hadn’t_ been Raph’s contracted human, he’d be a popsicle. At this point in the game, he was going to take what he could get.

“It’s all good,” Casey said, and held out a fist. “Or in your case, it’s _chill,_ bro.”

There was an amount of groaning that followed that pun, while Mikey laughed loudly on the side of the rooftop and Leo made a tight grimace.

“Chill,” Leo repeated. He bumped fists with Casey, wearing a _Fine, let’s humor the human some more_ sort of expression. “Yes, I suppose we are that. Now, about your progress figuring out how to end the contract with my brother-”

Casey grimaced, sucking in a breath through his teeth. “ _Yeeeeah,_ about that. We’re a little stuck still.” Never mind that he hadn’t been working too hard lately to fix that.

“How so?” Leo questioned seriously.

“Can’t remember a thing,” Casey explained honestly. He shrugged. “I was literally blackout drunk the night I summoned him, and if you can remember what you did while blackout drunk, then you’re probably not human. Which I definitely am.”

Leo gave him a confused look. “Then why haven’t you had Donnie cast a clarity spell on your memories?”

“Uh,” Casey blinked. “That’s a real good question.” They both turned towards the others at the sound of Raph smacking his forehead, looking entirely frustrated with himself.

“Donnie?” Leo prompted his sibling, turning a disapproving look on the long haired demon. “Why haven’t you offered an _extremely_ basic remedy to fix this situation?”

Donnie scowled, crossing his arms. Leo’s expression became one only a true older sibling could accomplish; equal parts absolutely done and utterly unsurprised.

“Donnie, really?” Leo said flatly.

“It was _his_ stupid mistake,” Donnie snapped. “I didn’t feel like cleaning up his messes for him.”

“So you’d leave our brother, trapped in a _human realm,_ for gods know how long _,_ because you didn’t feel like _helping him out?”_

“You could have _fixed this?”_ April accused, advancing a step towards Donnie, who backed up a hasty few. Mikey fell off the railing of the roof, laughing so hard he unbalanced himself.

“I can’t believe I forgot about that one,” Raph said mostly to the palms of his hands, covering his face as he moaned.

Casey sighed to himself, letting the tide of bickering wash over him. Given how much he and Raph had pissed Donnie off right from the start, he wasn’t all that surprised the demon had kept this information from them.

But that wasn’t to say he wasn’t really, really fucking annoyed by it.

Casey tuned back in just in time to see April, Raph, _and_ Leo shove Donnie towards him. Casey met Donnie’s red eyes evenly, unbothered by the glare Donnie fixed on him.

“You two deserved it,” Donnie said.

“Whine later, magic now,” Casey fired back. Donnie hissed at him, flashing teeth, but raised his hands with purple spell circles forming on his palms. Donnie muttered something fast and low, raising all the hair on Casey’s body and sending an electric wave of tension through the air.

Then Donnie slapped his hands to either side of Casey’s head, and everything tilted violently.

 

 

 

Casey was back at the party, drink in hand and music pulsing through his bones. People pressed close all around him, dozens of voices half lost in the overwhelming bassline of the song. Casey didn’t see any of their faces clearly, one after another blending together without distinguishable features-

A new drink appeared in his hand as the last one was finished. He drank it fast gulps, and when it was emptied another took its place. Other humans writhed and shimmied around him on the dancefloor, bumping into him over and over, and Casey found himself whooping, singing along boisterously as a radio favorite came on, ditching his umpteenth drink to dance with a guy he was pretty sure he had lectures with sometimes-

Things blurred faster and faster, the world spinning in bright and dark colors, until Casey found himself barely holding onto the sides of a mostly empty drink and staring at the first person all night that was noticeable in the smear of faceless people.

“Here,” said the young woman, trading Casey’s drink for a huge book. Her glasses reflected the lights of the house party, obscuring her eyes from Casey. “This is something you’ll want to have tonight, I promise.” She smirked, cheeks dimpling. “Have you ever wanted something so badly, you’d give even your soul to have it?”

“Wht’re- _talking_ about?” Casey asked, struggling to keep hold of the heavy book since his fingers were kinda numb feeling.

“Look inside the book when you get home,” the young woman instructed, somehow being audible despite the noise of the party. She tucked her purple streaked bangs behind her ears, smiling at Casey. “My friend Shinigami says you won’t regret it.”

“Studying…? Ha ha, dunno about that, Irshma- _Irma._ I’m like… _way_ too drunk righ’ now…”

“It won’t be difficult, trust me. It’ll be like magic.”

Casey frowned, some part of him reacting to that through the dense fog in his brain. He stared at Irma, who- where did he know her from again- hadn’t she been April’s friend-?

Irma slipped away, melting into the thrash of bodies, and before Casey could even try to follow, the world around him swirled dizzyingly and he felt the floor disappear from under him- letting him fall, down, down, down into an endless black abyss-

Casey flailed as he came back up, gasping as he wrenched out of Donnie’s grip and trying to make sense of the images swirling in his head.

“Well?” Donnie asked, and Casey noticed then that everyone except Mikey was crowded around behind him; all waiting on Casey’s verdict.

“April,” Casey said breathlessly, feeling like he’d run up at least six flights of stairs. “Irma gave me- the book. She was _there,_ and all spooky vague about why, and she _gave me the book.”_

April’s eyebrows went up, and all three demons looked towards her for further clarification.

“Who’s Irma?” Raph asked, just a step below accusation in his tone.

“A friend of mine,” April said, pursing her lips. “Or she used to be. We had a few seminars together, and used the same labs a lot, and then she just… disappeared last year. I haven’t heard from her since then, so I have no clue why she had a demon summoning spell book.”

“She said someone named ‘Shinigami’ gave it to her,” Casey explained, and startled a little as all three brothers made an identical yowl.

“ _Shini,”_ Donnie exclaimed in an exasperated tone. “I should have _known_.”

“Who else would have her contract partner choose someone _drunk_ to summon an upper tier demon?” Leo lamented.

“Next time I see that witch, I’m going to kick her ass if it’s the last thing I do,” Raph growled, tail lashing.

“Oh for- enough with the dramatics!” April snapped. “Just tell us who she is already!”

“Our older sister’s _wife,”_ all three of them said, varying levels of anger and despair. Casey scratched the back of his neck.

“Yeah, and why’d she want to get me to summon Raph?” he asked.

“Fates only know,” Raph said, rubbing his temples. His brothers didn’t look any less pained. “She and Mikey get on like a house on fire, ‘cause they both like pulling big pranks every couple centuries. I guess this is her idea of a laugh this time around.”

Casey didn’t really know what to say to that, other that he was a little disappointed him getting to meet someone that weirdly checked a lot of his boxes, was just a prank played by a demon lady. Quietly reluctant to continue the process of ending his contract Raph, Casey said, “So can we like… call her or something? Irma made it sound like she knew what was up.”

Leo sighed, and broke away from the group. A blue spell circle took form in his hands, spinning as he tapped specific glyphs. “I’ll see if I can summon her here. With all four of us here, we should have a chance at holding her still long enough to get answers.” He glanced around quickly. “Sorry, make that the three of us and April. Mikey’s still gone.”

“What am I, chopped liver?” Casey complained.

“No, but you would be if you tried to fight any of us yourself,” Leo said matter of factly. “Let alone a witch turned demonic.”

“Excuse me, a witch?” April piped up, but before anyone could answer, Leo’s little spell circle appeared in duplicate on the roof in a much larger size. Casey felt his perception of reality wobble a little, not quite appreciating the shift in atmosphere as the summoning spell grew in brightness.

Casey noted that Raph moved in front of him, blocking the worst of the whipping winds starting to rise from the summons. Casey shielded his face as the intensity became too much, and could vaguely make out the shape of Raph’s horns against the mixture of blue and black lights.

Then the air pressure popped, and it all disappeared. Casey lowered his arms, peering over Raph to look at what had shown up.

Something that resembled an answering machine hovered in the air, suspended by little bat wings flapping merrily. Casey was struck dumb enough by the absurdity of the sight that he almost missed the cheery message playing.

“ _-currently busy and can’t come to the summoning right now, so sorry! But you must understand, sometimes a woman needs time to herself, and sometimes a woman needs time to show her wife_ just _how much she loves her-”_

Leo quickly slapped a hand against the answering machine, cheeks tinting darkly. “And we don’t need to listen to that for the millionth time,” he announced, drawing his hand away and letting the machine dissipate above the fading spell circle.

There was an air of disappointment, particularly since things had ended so anti-climactically. Casey leaned against Raph’s back, and Raph barely smacked his tail against Casey’s leg for the invasion of space.

“So now what?” Casey asked, continuing to ignore the annoyed twitching of Raph’s tail. He was still tired from the Leo thing; this was taking everything right out of him all over again. Raph could support him a little longer.

“Call again?” April suggested, barely concealing her _Duh_ at the end.

Donnie waved a hand dismissively. “No, if she doesn’t answer the first time, she isn’t going to answer at all. We’ll just end up listening to her recite poetry about our older sister multiple times.”

“Which we’ve already heard enough of to last a millennium,” Raph said dryly.

Casey glanced towards Leo, who so far had had pretty helpful ideas. This was more progress in under an hour than the entire month and some that Casey and Raph had been trying.

Leo pondered silently for another moment, and then shook his head. “That’s it, I’m calling Karai.”

Casey was close enough to Raph’s head he witnessed the demon’s hair poofing up dramatically. The red tips of Raph’s semi-mowhawk bristled, and Casey could feel the demon’s tail doing the same.

“Uh, how about we _don’t_ do that?” Donnie said, tail swishing in a way that was distinctly nervous.

“We’re all out of options, and this is _her_ wife’s fault-”

“Leo, _no,”_ Raph just about pleaded, and Casey’s eyebrows went up of their own accord at that. “She’ll rip me a new one for this-”

“As she should! Dropping out of contact, not even a _word_ that you’ve answered a prolonged summons-” Leo said in reprimand, and as he turned towards Donnie, “-and _you,_ you didn’t even _try_ to help fix this-!”

“What’s goin’ on?” Mikey called, having reappeared on the railing. His eyes went to the blue spell circle Leo had created again, which was steadily bleeding a rich purple and green. “Oh. Oh _shit._ We’re really calling Karai-?”

Raph abruptly removed himself from being Casey’s personal armrest, spreading his wings and beating a retreat towards the edge of the rooftop. Donnie seemed to be of the same mind, turning literal tail as the air pressure changed sharply and became overwhelmingly heavy. Casey gasped, eyesight spotty and already weak legs buckling. April caught him, balancing her broom and him in each hand, and Casey blearily managed to stay conscious as the summoning spell began to let something through.

Casey’s mind then struggled to take in just what was happening. When Raph had said he had a big sister, Casey had imagined a slightly larger dragonish demon, resembling all of the brothers.

Instead, three enormous scaled heads shot out of the open portal, hissing so loud it was more of a roar. The necks of the three heads continued to grow in length, then joining together to attach to an even longer body, and Casey’s eyes were wide as they could go as a triple headed serpent creature the nearly size of his _apartment complex_ entered his dimension completely.

One of the arm-heads snatched Raph out of the air, closing its fanged mouth around Casey’s friend and leaving barely any sight of the short demon. Donnie, who was wisely trading his human form for his demonic one, was snatched up by the second arm head, still captured like it was nothing despite now being the size of a car. Which meant nothing when the mouth clamping down on you was just as big.

Casey could feel April dragging him backwards at the world shook- or, actually, that was just the _roof’s structure-_ and even though Leo was clearly trying to talk to the giant serpent being, he was grabbed out of the air by his sister’s great and long tail. The only one still left free was Mikey, who was watching the proceeding events with a mild interest.

“ _Mikey!”_ Casey found the strength to yell. “Fucking _do something already!”_

“Hm? Do what?” Mikey asked, all but lounging on the railing at the roof started to crack in places; unable to hold the weight of an enormous thrashing demon snake.

“GET US OUT OF HERE ALREADY!”

“Like, all of us? And where to-”

“We don’t care, just _DO IT!”_ April ordered. Mikey stuck out his tongue, but spread his wings and clapped his hands together. He gathered orange energy around his hands while his brothers all screamed in cacophony with their sister’s unholy roars. Casey felt distinctly like he was going to pass out, too much demonic energy permeating the air for a normal human to handle.

To his relief, and then horror- Mikey threw out his arms and covered the entire roof in a neon bright spell. Everyone screamed as they fell through the swirling portal, and Casey was no exception to that; clinging to April as they fell into the abyss.

Mikey flapped his wings once, and dove in after them all- closing the portal behind him and leaving the roof of Casey’s apartment complex looking like it only went through a _small_ earthquake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, come see me on [tumblr.](https://onthespectrumwriting.tumblr.com/) ask me stuff about this au i haven't discussed yet and maybe i'll talk about it. :0c

**Author's Note:**

> eventually this'll end.
> 
> eventually.


End file.
